If you ever need help while using Git, there are three equivalent ways to get the comprehensive manual page (manpage) help for any of the Git commands:
$ git help <verb>
$ git <verb> --help
$ man git-<verb>
For example, you can get the manpage help for the git config
command by running this:
$ git help config
These commands are nice because you can access them anywhere, even offline.
If the manpages and this book aren’t enough and you need in-person help, you can try the #git
, #github
, or #gitlab
channels on the Libera Chat IRC server, which can be found at https://libera.chat/.
These channels are regularly filled with hundreds of people who are all very knowledgeable about Git and are often willing to help.
In addition, if you don’t need the full-blown manpage help, but just need a quick refresher on the available options for a Git command, you can ask for the more concise “help” output with the -h
option, as in:
$ git add -h
usage: git add [<options>] [--] <pathspec>...
-n, --dry-run dry run
-v, --verbose be verbose
-i, --interactive interactive picking
-p, --patch select hunks interactively
-e, --edit edit current diff and apply
-f, --force allow adding otherwise ignored files
-u, --update update tracked files
--renormalize renormalize EOL of tracked files (implies -u)
-N, --intent-to-add record only the fact that the path will be added later
-A, --all add changes from all tracked and untracked files
--ignore-removal ignore paths removed in the working tree (same as --no-all)
--refresh don't add, only refresh the index
--ignore-errors just skip files which cannot be added because of errors
--ignore-missing check if - even missing - files are ignored in dry run
--sparse allow updating entries outside of the sparse-checkout cone
--chmod (+|-)x override the executable bit of the listed files
--pathspec-from-file <file> read pathspec from file
--pathspec-file-nul with --pathspec-from-file, pathspec elements are separated with NUL character