# Question: is there a possibility of getting a warning before a git push -f 5 messages from 2025-06-09 to 2025-06-12. Participants: Aditya Garg, Junio C Hamano, D. Ben Knoble. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/63609 ## Aditya Garg, 2025-06-09 16:46 Subject: Question: is there a possibility of getting a warning before a git push -f Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/PN0PR01MB95880EAA98466C9AB049BA44B86BA%40PN0PR01MB9588.INDPRD01.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM ``` 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. ``` ## Junio C Hamano, 2025-06-09 18:42 Subject: Re: Question: is there a possibility of getting a warning before a git push -f Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/xmqqldq0rc3b.fsf%40gitster.g In-Reply-To: ``` Aditya Garg writes: > 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". ``` ## Aditya Garg, 2025-06-09 18:44 Subject: Re: Question: is there a possibility of getting a warning before a git push -f Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/PN3PR01MB9597D5059F9C9E0FCF442CB0B86BA%40PN3PR01MB9597.INDPRD01.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM In-Reply-To: ``` > On 10 Jun 2025, at 12:12 AM, Junio C Hamano wrote: > > Aditya Garg writes: > >> 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". Fair ``` ## D. Ben Knoble, 2025-06-11 23:18 Subject: Re: Question: is there a possibility of getting a warning before a git push -f Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/CALnO6CA-SvasocZ_tbN2_-DiGCO55W6gyXDjJZqRo5Y3D4JRmg%40mail.gmail.com In-Reply-To: ``` > Le 9 juin 2025 à 12:47, Aditya Garg a écrit : > > 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. 2 effective habits I like: - Check what I’m pushing first. - Only force when absolutely needed, and even then default to a “strict” version (force-with-lease *and* force-if-includes; I use an alias “pf” and some config to make it easy, since I do force-push regularly in a rebase-heavy workflow). Expanding a bit: I have a “git-div” script that will show me the graph in the way I like between HEAD and @{push}, or @{upstream} if those are the same revision [it accepts arbitrary revisions though]. It was mostly inspired by mjd’s git-vee, and uses lots of annotations (cherry-mark, left-right, boundary) to give a quick HUD. https://github.com/benknoble/Dotfiles/blob/master/links/bin/git-div (“graph” is an alias for git-log with the graph and oneline options) I also use(d to) use show-branch a lot, and I have aliases sbu = show-branch HEAD @{upstream} and sbup = sbu @{push} that I still use sometimes. As I recently told some colleagues, I consider regularly reviewing where in the commit graph I am equally as important as checking git-status. The second bullet is probably self-explanatory, but the basic idea is to give myself the most protection I can, and only weaken it as necessary. In fact, I almost never need to remove any of those “strict” flags to force-push except when I’m intentionally force-pushing from a detached HEAD (https://lore.kernel.org/git/CALnO6CCk0SgwObQRnpd5Pt_DvCKF8dBmyVHivU6Nr_O-GusGLA@mail.gmail.com/). > 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. ``` ## Aditya Garg, 2025-06-12 11:49 Subject: Re: Question: is there a possibility of getting a warning before a git push -f Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/PN3PR01MB959737A5CCD375854E0E9385B874A%40PN3PR01MB9597.INDPRD01.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM In-Reply-To: ``` On 12/06/25 4:48 am, D. Ben Knoble wrote: >> Le 9 juin 2025 à 12:47, Aditya Garg a écrit : >> >> 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. > > 2 effective habits I like: > - Check what I’m pushing first. > - Only force when absolutely needed, and even then default to a > “strict” version (force-with-lease *and* force-if-includes; I use an > alias “pf” and some config to make it easy, since I do force-push > regularly in a rebase-heavy workflow). > > Expanding a bit: > > I have a “git-div” script that will show me the graph in the way I > like between HEAD and @{push}, or @{upstream} if those are the same > revision [it accepts arbitrary revisions though]. It was mostly > inspired by mjd’s git-vee, and uses lots of annotations (cherry-mark, > left-right, boundary) to give a quick HUD. > > https://github.com/benknoble/Dotfiles/blob/master/links/bin/git-div Ah nice, I was searching for something similar. > > (“graph” is an alias for git-log with the graph and oneline options) > > I also use(d to) use show-branch a lot, and I have aliases sbu = > show-branch HEAD @{upstream} and sbup = sbu @{push} that I still use > sometimes. > > As I recently told some colleagues, I consider regularly reviewing > where in the commit graph I am equally as important as checking > git-status. > > The second bullet is probably self-explanatory, but the basic idea is > to give myself the most protection I can, and only weaken it as > necessary. In fact, I almost never need to remove any of those > “strict” flags to force-push except when I’m intentionally > force-pushing from a detached HEAD > (https://lore.kernel.org/git/CALnO6CCk0SgwObQRnpd5Pt_DvCKF8dBmyVHivU6Nr_O-GusGLA@mail.gmail.com/). > > >> 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. ```