What is the HEAD in git?

HEAD is a reference to the last commit in the currently checked-out branch.

There is a small exception to this, which is the detached HEAD. A detached HEAD is the situation you end up in whenever you check out a commit (or tag) instead of a branch. In this case, you have to imagine this as a temporary branch without a name; so instead of having a named branch reference, we only have HEAD. It will still allow you to make commits (which will update HEAD), so the above short definition is still true if you think of a detached HEAD as a temporary branch without a name.

HEAD is a ref (reference) to the currently checked out commit.

In normal states, it's actually a symbolic ref to the branch you have checked out - if you look at the contents of .git/HEAD you'll see something like "ref: refs/heads/master". The branch itself is a reference to the commit at the tip of the branch. Therefore, in the normal state, HEAD effectively refers to the commit at the tip of the current branch.

It's also possible to have a "detached HEAD". This happens when you check out something besides a (local) branch, like a remote branch, a specific commit, or a tag. The most common place to see this is during an interactive rebase, when you choose to edit a commit. In detached HEAD state, your HEAD is a direct reference to a commit - the contents of .git/HEAD will be a SHA1 hash.

Generally speaking, HEAD is just a convenient name to mean "what you have checked out" and you don't really have to worry much about it. Just be aware of what you have checked out, and remember that you probably don't want to commit if you're not on a branch (detached HEAD state) unless you know what you're doing (e.g. are in an interactive rebase).

I always thought HEAD~5 means go to 5 commits before. But it doesn't carry the GO part of the command. It only carries the reference part of the command.

What you can do with that reference varies by the command you select

In layman terms it's used to answer the question of: WHERE should I go? To which commit?

• HEAD means (the reference to the) current commit
• HEAD~1 means (the reference to) 1 commit before
• HEAD~ ALSO means (the reference to) 1 commit before
• HEAD~87 means (the reference to) 87 commits before
• HEAD~3..HEAD means from 3 commits to current commit

Usage:

• git checkout HEAD~1 will actually GO/checkout to 1 commit/reference before
• git reset HEAD~3 will uncommit your last 3 commits — without removing the changes, ie you can see all the changes made in the last 3 commits together, remove anything you don't like or add onto it and then commit them all again.
• git reset --hard HEAD~3 will uncommit your last commit and remove their changes. It will completely remove those changes. For more see here.
• git diff HEAD~3 to look into the changes of the last 3 commits
• git diff someFile HEAD~3 to look into the last 3 changes of a specific file
• git revert --no-commit HEAD~3..HEAD. Make a new commit by reverting last 3 commits: For more see here

Also make sure you see this answer for What is a detached HEAD.

It has some good info on cat .git/HEAD

HEAD pointer in Git

Git maintains a reference variable called HEAD. And we call this variable a pointer, because its purpose is to reference, or point to, a specific commit in the repository. As we make new commits the pointer is going to change or move to point to a new commit. HEAD always points to the tip of the current branch in our repository. Now, this has to do with our repository, not our staging index, or our working directory.

Another way to think of it is the last state of our repository or what was last checked out, and because it's where the repository left off or the last state, you can also say that the HEAD points to the parent of the next commit or it's where commit writing is going to take place.

I think a good metaphor to think about this is the playback and record head on a cassette tape recorder. As we start recording audio, the tape moves past the head, and it records onto it. when we press Stop the place where that record head is stopped is the place it'll start recording again when we press Record a second time.Now we can move around, we can move the head to different places, but wherever the head is positioned when we hit Record again that's where it's going to start recording.

The HEAD pointer in Git is very similar, it points at the place where we're going to start recording next. It's the place where we left off in our repository for the things that we've committed.