Git push --force vs --force-with-lease

What git push does is basically -

• Copies all the commits that exist in the local branch
• Integrates the histories by forwarding the remote branch to reference the new commit, also called Fast forward ref.

What is git push —force?

Git’s push —force is destructive because it unconditionally overwrites the remote repository with whatever you have locally, possibly overwriting any changes that a team member has pushed in the meantime. However there is a better way; the option –force-with-lease can help when you do need to do a forced push but still ensure you don’t overwrite other’s work.

A safer alternative: force-with-lease

A force push overwrites a remote branch with your local branch, regardless of the status of that remote branch (more on force push here). This is not ideal in a team scenario as it might result in one developer overwriting other developers’ commits (this could happen when the developer forgot to do a git pull to fetch the newer commits).

Enter the safer alternative: git push —force-with-lease

Force with lease gives you the flexibility to override new commits on your remote branch, whilst protecting your old commit history:

• If you rebased and squashed/edited/created new commits, you will be able to update the remote branch.
• If new commits are added to the remote branch (by some team member), this command would not update the remote branch (and not overwrite any work).

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