git undo last commit — keep or discard changes

Quick Answer

# Keep changes staged (safest — just undoes the commit)
git reset --soft HEAD~1

# Keep changes but unstage them  (default behavior)
git reset HEAD~1

# Discard all changes entirely  (destructive — cannot undo)
git reset --hard HEAD~1

When to use this

You just ran git commit and want to undo it — to fix the message, add a forgotten file, or split it into smaller commits.

More options

Undo multiple commits at once

git reset --soft HEAD~3     # undo last 3 commits, keep changes staged
git reset HEAD~3            # undo last 3, keep changes unstaged

Undo a commit that was already pushed

Use git revert instead of git reset — it adds a new "undo" commit without rewriting history.

git revert HEAD             # creates a new revert commit
git push origin main