git Force Push

Rebasing is a frequent task for anyone using git. We sometimes use rebasing to branch our code from the last changes or even just to drop commits from a branch.

Oftentimes when trying to push after a rebase, you’ll see something like the following:

hint: Updates were rejected because the tip of your current branch is behind
hint: its remote counterpart. Integrate the remote changes (e.g.
hint: 'git pull ...') before pushing again.
hint: See the 'Note about fast-forwards' in 'git push --help' for details.

Commonly developers will use the --force or -f flags during a push to force pushing code changes:

git push origin my-branch --force
# or
git push origin my-branch -f

I was recently surprised to find out that you could also prefix the branch name with + to force a push:

git push origin +my-branch

The + syntax is interesting but doesn’t seem intuitive so it’s not a practice I’d use, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t!