Move commits from master to feature branch

I am a big fan of the feature branching model. Working in an isolated branch created especially for the feature you are working on has its advantages. But, there is one thing I keep forgetting: creating the actual feature branch. This means I'm commiting directly to the master branch. Most of the times I notice this just before pushing. When this is the case, I quickly create a new feature branch and move my commits to it. In this post I'd like to share how I do this, how I move my commits from the master to a new feature branch.

Move commits to a new feature branch

Make sure you have checked out the branch that contains the commits you like to move and execute the following:

1. git branch feature will create the feature branch called feature.
2. git reset --hard origin/master will reset the current local master branch to the same commit as the remote master branch.
3. git checkout feature will simply switch to the feature branch which still contains the 4 commits.
4. git push origin feature will push it to the remote repository.

Here is what happened

The following ASCII drawing represents the situation I'm in when I discoved I have working on the master instead of a feature branch.

                    master
                      ↓
commits   A--B--C--D--E
          ↑
    origin/master

Commit A is where origin/master the remote master branch. Commit B, C, D and E are the commits that should be moved to a new feature branch.

I start by creating the new feature branch and call it feature. This should set the state of the feature branch to the same state as the one currently checked out, in my case master.

git branch feature

Now I have the following situation where master and feature point to the same commit E.

                     feature
                      master
                        ↓
commits     A--B--C--D--E
            ↑
      origin/master

I do not want commits from B to E to be on the master branch, so I reset to commit A with the git reset command. The easiest way to to reset to origin/master:

git reset --hard origin/master

Alternatively I could reset it n possitions back. I use that approuch when it is just a single commit (HEAD^), or not more than a hand full (HEAD~5).

git reset --hard HEAD~4

I rarely reset to a commit sha like the following. But if you know the sha from commit A you can use it to reset to there.

git reset --hard fd83c2

The above resets the index and directory content the local master branch to point to commit A.

          master     feature
            ↓           ↓
commits     A--B--C--D--E
            ↑
      origin/master

Now I can checkout the feature branch to continue working in it.

git checkout feature

Every commit we do now adds to the feature branch.

echo "foobar" >> file.txt
git add file.txt
git commit -m 'Adds file.txt'

And our git repository will look like the following.

          master        feature
            ↓              ↓
commits     A--B--C--D--E--F
            ↑
      origin/master

The feature branch can be shared by pushing it to the remote.

git push origin feature

This closes there circle and the repository looks like the following.

          master        feature
            ↓              ↓
commits     A--B--C--D--E--F
            ↑              ↑
      origin/master  origin/feature

Happy git'ng!