git-archaeology-lab

A companion repo for the article "The git Commands You Forgot Exist".

Reading about git bisect is one thing. Running it against a repo that actually has a baked-in bug is another.

This lab gives you a crafted git history — real commits, real branches, a real bug, a real moved-code refactor, a real hardcoded secret — so every exercise works against something genuine.

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Quick start

git clone https://github.com/copyleftdev/git-archaeology-lab
cd git-archaeology-lab
bash setup.sh
cd demo-repo

setup.sh takes about 5 seconds. It creates demo-repo/ with a full git history ready for all 10 exercises.

Requirements: git ≥ 2.25, Python ≥ 3.8 (for the bisect exercise). Nothing else.

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Exercises

#	Command	What you'll do
01	git worktree	Run two branches side-by-side without switching
02	git bisect run	Automated binary search to find a baked-in bug
03	git rerere	Resolve a conflict once; watch git re-apply it
04	git log -S	Find when a hardcoded secret was added and removed
05	git notes	Attach deployment metadata without touching history
06	git range-diff	Verify a rebase didn't silently alter any patches
07	git sparse-checkout	Materialize only the packages you need
08	--fixup + --autosquash	Fix any past commit without an awkward interactive rebase
09	git blame -C	Follow authorship through a file-to-file refactor
10	git bundle	Pack the entire repo into a portable file

Each exercise is self-contained. Do them in order or jump to whichever command you want to try.

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What's in the demo repo history

The setup.sh script builds this history from scratch every time — so you can always inspect it, blow it away, and regenerate cleanly.

v0.1.0  init: project skeleton
        feat: add word_frequency
        feat: add top_words
        chore: add metrics token (temp)          ← pickaxe target
        fix: remove hardcoded token, use env var  ← pickaxe target
        feat: add sentence_count
        feat: add strip_punctuation
v0.3.0  (last known-good tag before the bug)
        refactor: extract frequency module         ← blame -C target
        perf: optimize split (THE BUG)             ← bisect target
        feat: add char_frequency
        chore: register new api routes
HEAD

Branches:
  feature/lowercase-count   ← rerere conflict branch A
  fix/split-whitespace      ← rerere conflict branch B / worktree target
  polish/v1                 ← range-diff source
  polish/v2                 ← range-diff target

Tags: v0.1.0, v0.2.0, v0.3.0

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Reset

cd ..
rm -rf demo-repo
bash setup.sh

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Related

• Article: The git Commands You Forgot Exist
• Issues and PRs welcome — especially if you find a step that doesn't work on your platform.