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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-17T22:03:47+00:00

Basic question but this happens to me all the time: Make changes in a

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Basic question but this happens to me all the time:

  • Make changes in a working-branch
  • Switch to master
  • git merge working-branch
  • git push
  • cap deploy(to staging)
  • make a new cup of tea

then I come back and think of something else and start making some changes…while still on master.

What’s an easy way to either:

  1. prevent direct edits on master (warning perhaps)
  2. move all edits over to working-branch and clear master so I can continue editing on working-branch or
  3. spin edits into an entirely new branch new-working-branch and then discard working-branch?

Took a risk and tried the recommendation in the latter part of "Branches" section of this page but that just wiped out ALL my edits?! Perhaps because after git branch dubious-experiment and git checkout master the git status on both branches was identical (not ‘clean’ on master). So git reset --hard <SHA1sum> wiped out all changes on both?!

  git branch dubious-experiment

  M---N-----O----P---Q ("master" and "dubious-experiment")

  git checkout master

  # Be careful with this next command: make sure "git status" is
  # clean, you're definitely on "master" and the
  # "dubious-experiment" branch has the commits you were working
  # on first...

  git reset --hard <SHA1sum of commit N>
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    From your description, I assume that you did not commit any changes yet – is that correct?

    If yes, here’s your answers:

    How to prevent direct edits to master

    You would need to set that in your editor, but that will probably be difficult. Displaying your current branch in your prompt and your editor helps a lot.

    How to move the changes into a new branch new-working-branch and then discard working-branch

    git checkout -b new-working-branch
git add …
git commit -m "mycommit"

    As you didn’t commit anything to master yet, you don’t need to change anything on master. You can now discard your working-branch if you feel like it.

    How to move the changes over to working-branch

    git checkout -b temp-branch
git add …
git commit -m "mycommit" 
git rebase --onto working-branch master
git checkout working-branch
git reset --hard temp-branch
git branch -d temp-branch

    If your changes don’t conflict with any changes that are on master, but not in working-branch, this can be done a lot simpler:

    git stash
git checkout working-branch
git stash pop
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