How to undo a successful "git cherry-pick"?

On a local repo, I've just executed git cherry-pick SHA without any conflicts or problems. I then realized I didn't want to do what I just did. I have not pushed this anywhere.

How can I remove just this cherry pick?

I'd like to know if there's a way to do this:

• when I have other local changes
• when I have no other local changes

Preferably with one command for both cases if possible.

Solution 1:

A cherry-pick is basically a commit, so if you want to undo it, you just undo the commit.

when I have other local changes

Stash your current changes so you can reapply them after resetting the commit.

$ git stash
$ git reset --hard HEAD^
$ git stash pop  # or `git stash apply`, if you want to keep the changeset in the stash

when I have no other local changes

$ git reset --hard HEAD^

Solution 2:

To undo your last commit, simply do git reset --hard HEAD~.

Edit: this answer applied to an earlier version of the question that did not mention preserving local changes; the accepted answer from Tim is indeed the correct one. Thanks to qwertzguy for the heads up.

Solution 3:

If possible, avoid hard resets. Hard resets are one of the very few destructive operations in git. Luckily, you can undo a cherry-pick without resets and avoid anything destructive.

Note the hash of the cherry-pick you want to undo, say it is ${bad_cherrypick}. Do a git revert ${bad_cherrypick}. Now the contents of your working tree are as they were before your bad cherry-pick.

Repeat your git cherry-pick ${wanted_commit}, and when you're happy with the new cherry-pick, do a git rebase -i ${bad_cherrypick}~1. During the rebase, delete both ${bad_cherrypick} and its corresponding revert.

The branch you are working on will only have the good cherry-pick. No resets needed!