Step 1: Confirm the bad commit
 

• Open your local repository in a terminal or command prompt.
• Use git log to locate the commit hash you want to recover from.

git log --oneline

 
Step 2: Inspect the reference log (reflog)
 

• Reflog tracks all HEAD movements, including commits, resets, merges and rebases.
• Run git reflog to find the state just before your bad commit.

git reflog

 
Step 3: Check out the reference you want to restore
 

• Identify the reflog entry (e.g., HEAD@{3}) that represents the last good state.
• Check it out into a detached HEAD to review before making any changes.

git checkout HEAD@{3}

 
Step 4: Create a new branch from the good state
 

• To avoid losing track, create a new branch at this point.
• This allows you to preserve the recovered changes separately.

git checkout -b recover-from-bad-commit

 
Step 5: Compare and cherry-pick desired commits
 

• Use git log or a diff tool to compare between the bad branch and the new branch.
• Cherry-pick individual commits you want to keep from the bad branch.

git cherry-pick 

 
Step 6: Merge or reset your main branch
 

• Option A: Merge the recovered branch into main (or master).
• Option B: Reset the main branch pointer back to the good commit if you want a clean history.

# Option A: merge
git checkout main
git merge recover-from-bad-commit

Option B: hard reset (destroys history after the reset point)
git checkout main
git reset --hard recover-from-bad-commit

 
Step 7: Push the corrections to GitHub
 

• If you reset or rewrote history, you’ll need to force push to update the remote.
• Otherwise, a normal push is sufficient.

# Normal push
git push origin main

Force push (use with caution)
git push --force origin main