How do I deal with merge conflicts in git

[caro401]

Article type

This is a concrete article (how do I...)

The title should be something like: How do I deal with merge conflicts in git

Target audience

People know just enough git to be dangerous, and are working with some kind of remote (GitHub probably). This probably means working with other people, but could also be you using git to sync between >1 computer

When you try and pull/push and someone else has made changes, and git just gives you confusion.

Things to cover

• quick reminder that you should know what git/hub are, and what pulling/pushing means conceptually
• outline scenario - your colleague made commits, and you did too, on the same branch. Your colleague pushed before you did, now you're stuck
• what is git telling you?
• what are your options
  • didn't commit yet? stash pull apply
  • did commit - rebase
  • did commit - merge
  • when to pick which? this might be a team convention
• what happens when things go wrong?

Is it related to anything else we've written about?

Pretty much everything about git and github.

Anything else?

Definitely should link to Julia Evans on git - oh shit git, or her newer articles
(I just went looking for links and https://jvns.ca/blog/2024/02/01/dealing-with-diverged-git-branches/ is pretty much exactly this topic, with fantastic words as expected)

Next steps

I want to write the article mostly myself