8.1 KiB
8.1 KiB
Operation: Handle Detached HEAD State
Handle detached HEAD state and provide solutions.
Purpose
When git is in "detached HEAD" state, explain what this means and provide clear options for resolution.
Parameters
None required - automatic detection and guidance.
Workflow
1. Detect Detached HEAD State
Check HEAD status:
# Check if HEAD is detached
git symbolic-ref HEAD 2>/dev/null || echo "detached"
# Get current commit
git rev-parse --short HEAD
# Check if any branch points here
git branch --contains HEAD
2. Analyze Context
Determine how user got into detached HEAD:
# Check reflog for recent operations
git reflog -10
# Check recent checkouts
git reflog | grep "checkout:" | head -5
# See what branches exist
git branch -a
Common causes:
- Checked out a specific commit SHA
- Checked out a tag
- During rebase or bisect operations
- After certain git operations that move HEAD
3. Explain Detached HEAD State
Clear Explanation
DETACHED HEAD STATE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Current state:
HEAD is at: abc1234
Branch: (none - detached HEAD)
What This Means:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
You are not on any branch. You're directly on commit abc1234.
Why This Matters:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
- New commits you make won't be on any branch
- When you switch branches, these commits become hard to find
- You could lose work if you don't create a branch
This is OK for:
✅ Viewing old commits
✅ Testing code at a specific point
✅ Temporary exploration
This is NOT OK for:
❌ Making new commits you want to keep
❌ Starting new work
❌ Continuing development
4. Provide Resolution Options
Option A: Create New Branch Here
SOLUTION A: Create a New Branch Here
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
If you want to keep working from this commit:
1. Create and switch to new branch:
git checkout -b new-branch-name
OR (two steps):
git branch new-branch-name
git checkout new-branch-name
2. Verify:
git status
# Should show "On branch new-branch-name"
3. Continue working:
Make commits as normal
They'll be on the new branch
Example:
git checkout -b fix-issue-123
Option B: Return to a Branch
SOLUTION B: Return to Your Branch
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
If you were just exploring and want to go back:
1. Switch to your branch:
git checkout main
OR:
git checkout <your-branch-name>
2. Verify:
git status
# Should show "On branch main"
Available branches:
[List branches from git branch -a]
Recent branch:
git checkout - # Goes to previous branch
Option C: Attach HEAD to Existing Branch
SOLUTION C: Attach HEAD to Existing Branch
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
If a branch already points to this commit:
Current commit: abc1234
Branches at this commit:
[List from git branch --contains]
1. Check out that branch:
git checkout <branch-name>
2. Verify:
git branch
# Should show * next to branch name
Option D: Keep Commits Made in Detached HEAD
If user already made commits in detached HEAD:
SOLUTION D: Preserve Commits Made in Detached HEAD
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
You made commits while in detached HEAD.
Current situation:
- HEAD at: abc1234
- Commits made: 3
- These commits are not on any branch!
To save them:
1. Create branch from current position:
git checkout -b save-my-work
2. Verify commits are there:
git log --oneline -5
Your commits are now safe on "save-my-work" branch.
Next steps:
- Continue work on this branch, OR
- Merge into another branch:
git checkout main
git merge save-my-work
5. Show Visual Diagram
VISUAL EXPLANATION
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Normal State (on a branch):
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
main → [commit 1] → [commit 2] → [commit 3]
↑
HEAD
HEAD points to branch "main"
Branch "main" points to commit 3
Detached HEAD State:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
main → [commit 1] → [commit 2] → [commit 3]
[commit X] ← HEAD (detached)
HEAD points directly to commit X
No branch points to commit X
Making Commits in Detached HEAD:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
main → [commit 1] → [commit 2] → [commit 3]
[commit X] → [commit Y] ← HEAD (detached)
If you checkout main now, commit Y becomes orphaned!
Solution - Create Branch:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
main → [commit 1] → [commit 2] → [commit 3]
new-branch → [commit X] → [commit Y] ← HEAD
Now commits are safe on "new-branch"
6. Interactive Decision Support
Guide user to choose:
What would you like to do?
A) Create a new branch here and continue working
→ Choose this if you want to keep this commit as a starting point
B) Return to a branch (discard position)
→ Choose this if you were just exploring
C) Attach to an existing branch
→ Choose this if a branch already points here
D) Save commits I made while detached
→ Choose this if you already made commits
E) Not sure - need more explanation
Please respond with A, B, C, D, or E.
Error Handling
If not in detached HEAD
Not in detached HEAD state.
Current state:
Branch: main
HEAD: abc1234
You're on a normal branch. No action needed.
If during special operation
Detached HEAD during rebase.
This is temporary and expected.
Actions:
- Complete the rebase: git rebase --continue
- OR abort: git rebase --abort
After completing/aborting, HEAD will reattach automatically.
If commits will be lost
⚠️ WARNING: Orphaned Commits Detected
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
You made 3 commits in detached HEAD:
- abc1234 "commit message 1"
- def5678 "commit message 2"
- ghi9012 "commit message 3"
If you switch branches now, these will be lost!
REQUIRED ACTION: Create a branch first
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
git checkout -b save-my-commits
Then you can safely work with these commits.
Output Format
Always provide:
- Clear state description - What detached HEAD means
- Current situation - What commit, how user got here
- Multiple solutions - All applicable options
- Visual aids - Diagrams if helpful
- Specific commands - Exact steps to resolve
- Warnings - If commits could be lost
Success Indicators
After resolution:
- HEAD is attached to a branch
git branchshows current branch with *git statusshows "On branch "- User understands what happened
- No commits were lost
Best Practices Guidance
AVOIDING DETACHED HEAD
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Prevention tips:
1. Use branches for work:
git checkout -b feature-name
(not: git checkout abc1234)
2. If checking out commits for inspection:
Remember you're in detached HEAD
Don't make commits you want to keep
3. If you need to work on an old commit:
git checkout -b fix-branch abc1234
(Creates branch at that commit)
4. Use tags for reference points:
git tag v1.0 abc1234
git checkout tags/v1.0
(Still detached, but purpose is clear)
Remember:
Detached HEAD is a valid state for temporary inspection,
but always create a branch before making commits.
Related Operations
- After resolving, run diagnose-issues to verify state
- Before creating branches, check with history-analysis for naming conventions
- After attaching HEAD, continue with normal commit workflow