How can I revert a Git repository to a previous commit?

You may find you're in a situation where you need to revert the repository to a previous commit. This can be done using the following command:

$ git revert 8fd3350cf6

Where 8fd3350cf6 is the old commit you're reverting back to. You'll be prompted to review and add a commit message for the revert, but you can leave the default message as it is:

Revert "Add the correct link to Brie"

This reverts commit 8fd3350cf6fba8bcd4abc7233d4ff6b81dd6ed3c.

# Please enter the commit message for your changes. Lines starting
# with '#' will be ignored, and an empty message aborts the commit.
#
# On branch my_new_branch
# Your branch and 'origin/my_new_branch' have diverged,
# and have 1 and 1 different commits each, respectively.
#   (use "git pull" to merge the remote branch into yours)
#
# Changes to be committed:
#       modified:   index.html
#

Then type ctrl+x, followed by the enter key to save it. You'll then see a confirmation message showing that you've reverted successfully:

[my_new_branch 8655d60] Revert "Add the correct link to Brie"
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

You can use git log to verify the revert commit was added to your history.

If you only need to undo your very last commit, see how to undo your last commit. For a deeper look at when to use revert versus git reset, read about the difference between git reset and git revert.

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