Git Cherry-Pick

Table of contents

1. What Is Cherry-Pick?
2. Quick Practice
3. Usage Scenario
4. Essential Commands

1. What Is Cherry-Pick?

Git cherry-pick = Copy ONE specific commit from one branch to another.

Concrete example:

• On feature-login: a critical bug-fix commit
• On main: you want JUST that fix, not the whole branch
• Solution: git cherry-pick <commit-hash>

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2. Quick Practice

Creating the project:

mkdir demo-cherry-pick && cd demo-cherry-pick
git init

echo "print('v1')" > app.py
git add . && git commit -m "Initial version"

# Create a feature branch
git checkout -b feature-new
echo "print('v2-feature')" > app.py
git add . && git commit -m "New feature"

echo "print('v2-bugfix')" > app.py
git add . && git commit -m "Critical fix"

# Go back to main and cherry-pick ONLY the bugfix
git checkout main
git cherry-pick <hash-du-commit-bugfix>

There you go! The fix is on main, without the feature.

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3. Usage Scenario

Typical situation:

1. Development on feature-branch
2. Critical bug discovered and fixed
3. Production (main) needs the fix NOW
4. But not the whole feature in development

Solution:

git log --oneline feature-branch    # Find the fix hash
git checkout main
git cherry-pick abc123f             # Apply JUST that commit

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4. Essential Commands

That's all! Cherry-pick is simple: 1 commit → 1 copy.

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