How to add new changes to most recent git commit?

📝 This post is part of my "Shorts" series. Each post in this series is hyper-focused on a single concept and should take less than 1 minute to read.

If you’ve ever used Git for version control, you may have come across a situation where you realise that you’ve made a mistake in your last commit and want to fix (modify) it. You could create a new commit with the fix or you could modify the existing commit and keep your commit history clean.

How to edit your most recent (last) commit?

The git command to be used is:

git commit --amend

More about `git commit --amend`

This is a powerful git command which allows you to modify the most recent commit. By using this command, you can combine any staged changes into the most recent commit.

For all you care, it edits the commit. But, under the surface, it replaces the most recent commit with a new commit, which has the combined changes. This means that the amended commit becomes a new entity with its own reference.

Changing the commit message of the most recent commit

This command can also be used to change the commit message of the most recent commit. Running the command, git commit --amend, will open your text editor and allow you to edit the commit message.

Else, you can also use the -m flag with the new commit message, bypassing the need to open your text editor.

git commit --amend -m "A better commit message"

What if there are no staged changes?

You can use this command to just edit the commit message of the most recent commit.

Keeping the same commit message

When git opens the text editor after you run the git commit --amend command, you can just save and close the editor to keep the same commit message.

Else, you can use the --no-edit flag to tell git to amend the most recent commit without changing its commit message. This will tell git not to open the text editor.

git commit --amend --no-edit

Final words

git commit --amend is a powerful tool for software developers who want to keep their git commit history clean. A git clean history, apart from looking clean, also helps you navigate your repository’s history easily by showing you the relevant final changes only.