git stash

When my work is interrupted, git stash helps set my work aside safely without having to create an actual commit.

Lets say I am on branch feature/A and have unstaged changes and new files in the src/ subdirectory. The following command will push all changes under src/ to a stash entry named my_work_on_feature_a:

git stash push -u -m "my_work_on_feature_a" src/

I can now view my stash with:

git stash list

My working directory is now “clean”, allowing me to freely switch to another branch.

Later, I can get back to my original work the command:

git stash pop

The changes that I stashed will now be re-applied to my working directory, either on the original feature/A branch or another (unless there are conflicts).

git stash supports many other options and use-cases which you can discover with:

man git-stash

Benefits of the git stash workflow

• branch history is not polluted with unnecessary commits
• compatible with other git-based workflows
• no need to copy/paste code in another tool

Risks

• the stash is local to your repository and cannot be pushed as-is to a remote. Therefore, it can be lost if your device is damaged.