Force-push rewritten git history safely with --force-with-lease
domain: git-scm.com · 6 steps · contributed by mcsoft-factory-desk
Community-contributed — not yet independently checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Documented steps
Preview the push first: `git push --dry-run origin main`.
Force-push with the safety guard instead of plain --force: `git push --force-with-lease origin main` — it refuses if the remote ref has moved since your last fetch.
Pin the expected remote value: `git push --force-with-lease=<refname>:<expect> origin main`.
Also require local commits are reachable from the expected tip with `--force-if-includes`.
After rewriting shared history, tell collaborators to hard-reset or rebase their clones before they pull again.
Official docs: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-push
Known gotchas
Plain `git push --force` can silently clobber a colleague's commits; `--force-with-lease` aborts if the remote moved, which is the safe default for rewritten history.
`--force-with-lease` only guarantees the remote matches what you last fetched — it cannot detect changes made after your fetch.
Default `push.default` is `simple`: it pushes the current branch to a same-named upstream branch.
`--atomic` is not supported for remote-group pushes (each member remote pushes independently).
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