I have a github repo that got an accidental force push on a branch.

The PR of this branch shows both the new and the old commit and i even can browse the files of this commit - so everything is still be there.

Can i somehow add a branchname to this commit, so that it can get checked out normally (and at the end correct the messed up initial branch)?

CodePudding user response：

If you have the complete sha of said commit, you can run :

git fetch origin <sha>
git switch -c newbranch <sha>

as commented by @kadewu : the sha in git fetch origin sha needs to be the complete sha (40 chars), otherwise git will try to interpret it as a reference name.

Also worth noting : if you (or anyone else) had the correct state of the remote branch at some point (eg: after a git fetch, or a git pull on any branch), you can find that correct commit by looking at :

git reflog origin/thatbranch

CodePudding user response：

Create a branch using GitHub's API, then you can fetch and checkout that branch.

curl -i -H "Accept: application/json" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X POST -d '{"ref":"refs/heads/<new-branch-name>", "sha":"<sha>"}' https://api.github.com/repos/<namespace>/<repo>/git/refs

https://objectpartners.com/2014/02/11/recovering-a-commit-from-githubs-reflog/