JGU Zettelkasten

Git HEAD, reflog, status

2 min read

Git

git reflog

git status shows the current state of your working directory and staging area. git reflog shows the history of HEAD, i.e., what commits or branches you have checked out or moved to. Typically to recover lost commits (e.g., after a bad reset or rebase)

Seeing the HEAD movement from reflog, then we can move back the commit by: Undo the last commit and put all the changes back into your working directory

git reset HEAD~1

What is HEAD in Git?

HEAD is a pointer to your current branch and the latest commit on that branch.

Think of it like a bookmark that tells Git:
👉 “This is where you currently are in the project history.”

Let’s say your branch main has three commits:

```A -- B -- C  (main)              
		     ↑  HEAD
  • HEAD points to the latest commit: C
  • If you commit now, it will be based on C
  • If you checkout another branch, HEAD moves to point to that branch

Detached HEAD

By doinggit checkout a1b2c3d`, you are not on any branch, just viewing a specific commit.

HEAD → commit a1b2c3d

If you commit now, it won’t be attached to any branch — it will be “dangling” unless you create a new branch.

Graph View