🚀 Week 4 – Git & GitHub Advanced Challenge

This week’s focus was on mastering advanced Git concepts that are essential in real-world DevOps workflows.
From collaborating through Pull Requests to maintaining a clean commit history, this challenge gave me the hands-on experience to work like a pro in a team-based environment.

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🔹 Topics Covered

1. Pull Requests – Team collaboration on GitHub.

2. Reset & Revert – Safely undoing mistakes.

3. Stashing – Saving incomplete work without committing.

4. Cherry-picking – Selecting specific commits across branches.

5. Rebasing – Keeping commit history clean.

6. Branching Strategies – Industry best practices for workflows.

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🛠 My Hands-On Journey

1️⃣ Pull Requests (PRs) – Collaborating in Teams

• Forked & cloned a repository.

• Created a feature-branch, made changes, and pushed to GitHub.

• Opened a PR, requested review, and merged after approval.

💡 Best Practices Learned:

• Write clear PR titles & descriptions.

• Link issues in PRs for better tracking.

• Address review comments promptly.

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2️⃣ Undoing Changes – Reset & Revert

Experimented with:

• git reset --soft → Keep changes staged.

• git reset --mixed → Unstage but keep changes.

• git reset --hard → Remove all changes.

• git revert → Safely undo without altering history.

💡 Key Insight:

• Use reset for local, unpublished changes.

• Use revert for changes already pushed/shared.

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3️⃣ Stashing – Save Work Temporarily

• Modified files without committing.

• Used git stash to save work.

• Switched branches and restored changes using:

  • git stash pop → Apply & remove stash.

  • git stash apply → Apply but keep stash.

💡 Use Case: Perfect when you need to quickly switch context without committing unfinished work.

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4️⃣ Cherry-Picking – Selective Commits

• Found the target commit hash using git log.

• Applied it to another branch using git cherry-pick <hash>.

• Resolved conflicts with git cherry-pick --continue.

💡 Why It’s Useful:
Great for applying urgent bug fixes without merging entire branches.
⚠ Caution: Overuse can lead to duplicate commits & conflicts.

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5️⃣ Rebasing – Clean History

• Fetched the latest main branch updates.

• Ran git rebase origin/main on my feature branch.

• Resolved conflicts & continued the rebase.

💡 Merge vs Rebase:

• Merge → Preserves history but adds extra commits.

• Rebase → Creates a linear, clean history (ideal for feature branches before merging).

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6️⃣ Branching Strategies – Industry Standards

Studied and simulated:

• Git Flow – Feature, Release, Hotfix branches.

• GitHub Flow – Simple & great for continuous deployment.

• Trunk-Based Development – Frequent small merges into main branch.

💡 Best for DevOps:
Trunk-Based Development + CI/CD ensures faster releases and fewer merge conflicts.

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📸 Highlights from My solution.md

• Documented exact commands, when to use them, and risks/benefits.

• Included real scenarios for each concept.

• Added branching strategy diagrams for clarity.

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📚 Key Takeaways

• Git is more than add, commit, push – advanced features make collaboration smoother.

• Pull Requests & code reviews are crucial for high-quality code.

• Rebasing and cherry-picking are powerful but must be used carefully.

• Choosing the right branching strategy impacts delivery speed & team efficiency.

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💬 My DevOps Learning Journey continues with more real-world challenges ahead.
If you’re starting out, practice these Git features daily – they’re the backbone of modern development.

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📤 Connect With Me

🔗 Blog Series: https://hashnode.com/@VaishnaviTandekar
💻 GitHub Repo: 90DaysOfDevOps

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🔖 Hashtags:

#90DaysOfDevOps #Git #GitHub #VersionControl #DevOps #Collaboration #GitFlow #Rebase #PullRequest #BranchingStrategies

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