Question

How can I completely “start over” in-place?

How can I totally wipe out everything in a Git remote repository? I am the only client currently and before I can let it go public I have to wipe out all of the previous commits.

Not a duplicate because…

This question is about how to remove history, including the original base commit, without deleting the existing repository. My repository is on SourceForge, and the only way to do that is to destroy the whole project, which requires you to submit a Project Removal Request, which they don’t always grant (especially in my case, where my project is younger than 90 days, so they won’t grant it).

Answer 1

If the remote name is origin and you have force-push rights on the remote repository, this will delete every branch and every tag in the remote repository:

REMOTE=origin

for i in .git/refs/$REMOTE/origin/*
do
    git push $REMOTE :"`basename "$i"`"
done

for i in `git tag`
do
    git push $REMOTE :refs/tags/$i
done

This is a destructive operation, so make sure that you really want to do this first.