GIT-REVERT(1) Git Manual GIT-REVERT(1)

NAME

git-revert - Revert some existing commits

SYNOPSIS

git revert [--[no-]edit] [-n] [-m <parent-number>] [-s] [-S[<keyid>]] <commit>...
git revert (--continue | --skip | --abort | --quit)

DESCRIPTION

Given one or more existing commits, revert the changes that the
related patches introduce, and record some new commits that record
them. This requires your working tree to be clean (no modifications
from the HEAD commit).

Note: git revert is used to record some new commits to reverse the
effect of some earlier commits (often only a faulty one). If you want
to throw away all uncommitted changes in your working directory, you
should see git-reset(1), particularly the --hard option. If you want
to extract specific files as they were in another commit, you should
see git-restore(1), specifically the --source option. Take care with
these alternatives as both will discard uncommitted changes in your
working directory.

See "Reset, restore and revert" in git(1) for the differences between
the three commands.

OPTIONS

<commit>...
Commits to revert. For a more complete list of ways to spell
commit names, see gitrevisions(7). Sets of commits can also be
given but no traversal is done by default, see git-rev-list(1)
and its --no-walk option.

-e, --edit
With this option, git revert will let you edit the commit message
prior to committing the revert. This is the default if you run
the command from a terminal.

-m parent-number, --mainline parent-number
Usually you cannot revert a merge because you do not know which
side of the merge should be considered the mainline. This option
specifies the parent number (starting from 1) of the mainline and
allows revert to reverse the change relative to the specified
parent.

Reverting a merge commit declares that you will never want the
tree changes brought in by the merge. As a result, later merges
will only bring in tree changes introduced by commits that are
not ancestors of the previously reverted merge. This may or may
not be what you want.

See the revert-a-faulty-merge How-To[1] for more details.

--no-edit
With this option, git revert will not start the commit message
editor.

--cleanup=<mode>
This option determines how the commit message will be cleaned up
before being passed on to the commit machinery. See git-commit(1)
for more details. In particular, if the <mode> is given a value
of scissors, scissors will be appended to MERGE_MSG before being
passed on in the case of a conflict.

-n, --no-commit
Usually the command automatically creates some commits with
commit log messages stating which commits were reverted. This
flag applies the changes necessary to revert the named commits to
your working tree and the index, but does not make the commits.
In addition, when this option is used, your index does not have
to match the HEAD commit. The revert is done against the
beginning state of your index.

This is useful when reverting more than one commits' effect to
your index in a row.

-S[<keyid>], --gpg-sign[=<keyid>], --no-gpg-sign
GPG-sign commits. The keyid argument is optional and defaults to
the committer identity; if specified, it must be stuck to the
option without a space. --no-gpg-sign is useful to countermand
both commit.gpgSign configuration variable, and earlier
--gpg-sign.

-s, --signoff
Add a Signed-off-by trailer at the end of the commit message. See
the signoff option in git-commit(1) for more information.

--strategy=<strategy>
Use the given merge strategy. Should only be used once. See the
MERGE STRATEGIES section in git-merge(1) for details.

-X<option>, --strategy-option=<option>
Pass the merge strategy-specific option through to the merge
strategy. See git-merge(1) for details.

--rerere-autoupdate, --no-rerere-autoupdate
After the rerere mechanism reuses a recorded resolution on the
current conflict to update the files in the working tree, allow
it to also update the index with the result of resolution.
--no-rerere-autoupdate is a good way to double-check what rerere
did and catch potential mismerges, before committing the result
to the index with a separate git add.

--reference
Instead of starting the body of the log message with "This
reverts <full-object-name-of-the-commit-being-reverted>.", refer
to the commit using "--pretty=reference" format (cf. git-
log(1)). The revert.reference configuration variable can be used
to enable this option by default.

SEQUENCER SUBCOMMANDS

--continue
Continue the operation in progress using the information in
.git/sequencer. Can be used to continue after resolving conflicts
in a failed cherry-pick or revert.

--skip
Skip the current commit and continue with the rest of the
sequence.

--quit
Forget about the current operation in progress. Can be used to
clear the sequencer state after a failed cherry-pick or revert.

--abort
Cancel the operation and return to the pre-sequence state.

EXAMPLES

git revert HEAD~3
Revert the changes specified by the fourth last commit in HEAD
and create a new commit with the reverted changes.

git revert -n master~5..master~2
Revert the changes done by commits from the fifth last commit in
master (included) to the third last commit in master (included),
but do not create any commit with the reverted changes. The
revert only modifies the working tree and the index.

DISCUSSION

While git creates a basic commit message automatically, it is
strongly recommended to explain why the original commit is being
reverted. In addition, repeatedly reverting reverts will result in
increasingly unwieldy subject lines, for example Reapply "Reapply
"<original-subject>"". Please consider rewording these to be shorter
and more unique.

CONFIGURATION

Everything below this line in this section is selectively included
from the git-config(1) documentation. The content is the same as
what's found there:

revert.reference
Setting this variable to true makes git revert behave as if the
--reference option is given.

SEE ALSO

git-cherry-pick(1)

GIT

Part of the git(1) suite

NOTES

1. revert-a-faulty-merge How-To
git-htmldocs/howto/revert-a-faulty-merge.html

Git 2.48.1 2025-01-13 GIT-REVERT(1)