If you haven't pushed to origin yet, you can reset your branch to the upstream branch with:
git checkout mybranch
git reset --hard origin/mybranch
(Make sure that you reference your latest commit in a separate branch, like you mention in your question)
Note that just after the reset, mybranch@{1} refers to the old commit, before reset.
But if you had already pushed, see "Create git branch, and revert original to upstream state" for other options.
With Git 2.23 (August 2019), that would be one command: git switch.
Namely: git switch -C mybranch origin/mybranch
Example
C:\Users\vonc\git\git>git switch -C master origin/master
Reset branch 'master'
Branch 'master' set up to track remote branch 'master' from 'origin'.
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/master'.
That restores the index and working tree, like a git reset --hard would.
As commented by Brad Herman, a reset --hard would remove any new file or reset modified file to HEAD.
Actually, to be sure you start from a "clean slate", a git clean -f -d after the reset would ensure a working tree exactly identical to the branch you just reset to.
This blog post suggests those aliases (for master branch only, but you can adapt/extend those):
Answer from VonC on Stack Overflow[alias] resetorigin = !git fetch origin && git reset --hard origin/master && git clean -f -d resetupstream = !git fetch upstream && git reset --hard upstream/master && git clean -f -dThen you can type:
git resetupstreamor
git resetorigin
If you haven't pushed to origin yet, you can reset your branch to the upstream branch with:
git checkout mybranch
git reset --hard origin/mybranch
(Make sure that you reference your latest commit in a separate branch, like you mention in your question)
Note that just after the reset, mybranch@{1} refers to the old commit, before reset.
But if you had already pushed, see "Create git branch, and revert original to upstream state" for other options.
With Git 2.23 (August 2019), that would be one command: git switch.
Namely: git switch -C mybranch origin/mybranch
Example
C:\Users\vonc\git\git>git switch -C master origin/master
Reset branch 'master'
Branch 'master' set up to track remote branch 'master' from 'origin'.
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/master'.
That restores the index and working tree, like a git reset --hard would.
As commented by Brad Herman, a reset --hard would remove any new file or reset modified file to HEAD.
Actually, to be sure you start from a "clean slate", a git clean -f -d after the reset would ensure a working tree exactly identical to the branch you just reset to.
This blog post suggests those aliases (for master branch only, but you can adapt/extend those):
[alias] resetorigin = !git fetch origin && git reset --hard origin/master && git clean -f -d resetupstream = !git fetch upstream && git reset --hard upstream/master && git clean -f -dThen you can type:
git resetupstreamor
git resetorigin
There is a slightly easier way to do this:
git reset --hard @{u}
@{u} is a shortcut for whatever your tracking branch is, so if you're on master and that tracks origin/master, @{u} points to origin/master.
The advantage of using this is that you don't have to remember (or type out) the full name of your tracking branch. You can also make an alias:
git-reset-origin="git reset --hard @{u}"
which will work regardless of the branch you're currently on.
[Git] How to 'git reset' a remote branch?
Reset feature branch to master
How to move back to origin/master from master heads
Reset branch to remote/upstream
Say I have a local branch and I make change A, then push it so both the local and remote has change A. I then realize I don't want change A as there was an error in it. I can use git reset to reset my local branch to the commit before change A, but then if I do that and try to push, it doesn't work. This makes sense because technically the local branch is behind the remote branch. And a solution to this is to just make a "revert change A" commit, but I don't even want my commit history to show these two commits since they cancel each other out
Is there a way to do "git reset" a remote branch?
Git supports this command:
git checkout -B master origin/master
Check out the origin/master branch and then reset master branch there.
UPDATE:
Or you can use new switch command for that
git switch -C master origin/master
As KindDragon's answer mentions, you can recreate master directly at origin/master with:
git checkout -B master origin/master
The git checkout man page mentions:
If -B is given, <new_branch> is created if it doesn’t exist; otherwise, it is reset. This is the transactional equivalent of
$ git branch -f <branch> [<start point>]
$ git checkout <branch>
Since Git 2.23+ (August 2019), since git checkout is too confusing, the new (still experimental) command is git switch:
git switch -C master origin/master
That is:
-C <new-branch> --force-create <new-branch>Similar to
--createexcept that if<new-branch>already exists, it will be reset to<start-point>.
This is a convenient shortcut for:$ git branch -f <new-branch> $ git switch <new-branch>
Originally suggested:
Something like:
$ git checkout master
# remember where the master was referencing to
$ git branch previous_master
# Reset master back to origin/master
$ git reset --hard origin/master
with step 2 being optional.