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Key concepts

Commit reference

A commit reference is a way to refer to specific commits when running Git commands. It can be commit hashes, branch names, tags, or special references such as HEAD~2. Commit references allow you to navigate through the commit history and perform operations on specific commits.

There are multiple ways to refer to commits. Here are the most common ones:

  • The full SHA-1 hash (e.g., 346ca091076783c70623aba03fb7139d3d27134f).

  • A shortened SHA-1 hash (the first few characters, usually the first 7, for example, 346ca09).

  • Tags: These are human-readable names (e.g., v1.0) that can be assigned by you to specific commits. We'll cover tags in just a bit.

  • Branch names: These are pointers to the latest commit in a branch. Branches (e.g., main, new-dashboard-feature) are the parallel lines of development in Git. We'll cover branches later as well.

  • HEAD: This is a special reference that points to the latest commit in the current branch.

  • Relative references (e.g., HEAD~5, which means the fifth commit before HEAD, or HEAD^, which means the commit before the latest).

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