Re: Question: is there a possibility of getting a warning before a git push -f

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jun 9, 2025, 18:42 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqldq0rc3b.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <PN0PR01MB95880EAA98466C9AB049BA44B86BA@PN0PR01MB9588.INDPRD01.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM>

Aditya Garg <gargaditya08@live.com> writes:

Show 6 quoted lines

> One thing I sometimes encounter is that I sometimes git push -f and
> moments later I realise I did it at the wrong time, result being a
> disaster. I was wondering if a little [y/N] warning could be possible
> before the risky command gets executed. I saw the code for push
> superficially and I don't think it's implemented. I think it would be
> a nice feature though.

I suspect that an even nicer feature that is more generally applicable is a patch to your shell to make any command you give it is not run for a few seconds to give you a chance to kill it with ^C. You do not want to run around castrating a bunch of commands and features like "git push", "rm", ">overwrite-with-redirect", and all the other "destructive" things you may regret doing. There are literally too many.

Quite honestly, "-f" or "--force" should be a hint enough that the user wants the command to do what the command usually does not allow them to do to avoid potentially dangerous operations.

I would expect that many people will truly get annoyed when "git anycommand --force" starts asking "That's very dangerous---are you sure?" for confirmations, and would complain "Yes, otherwise I wouldn't be giving you '--force'---just do it as I told you".