By: Andy Lewis and Matthew Mitrik
In Visual Studio Tools for Git we aim to offer the fundamental features you need to develop an app in a Git version-controlled codebase. We explain how to perform these tasks in previous posts such as Create, Connect, and Publish using Visual Studio with Git and in our Git welcome portal content.
That said, there is a long tail of less-common tasks in software development work. If you can't yet do what you want to do in VS, you might be able to do it from the command prompt. Also, many developers find the command prompt to be a handy and efficient way to perform repetitive tasks, either manually or with a script.
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Get set up to use the command prompt tools
Enable basic authentication for your TFS account
If your repo is hosted in Team Foundation Service (TFS), then you must enable basic authentication before you can use the command prompt to fetch, pull, push, clone, etc. You can set this up from your User Profile in TFS. Show me.
Tip: To make using the command prompt less tedious (for example, to avoid having to enter your credentials every time you push), you might want to also install Windows Credential Store for Git on your dev machine.
Get the command prompt tools
If you have not already installed some command-prompt tools, you can get some quickly from Visual Studio. (One way you can tell that you don't have the tools is if you try to enter a git command and get the 'git' is not recognized as an internal or external command... message.) Go to the Settings page and click Install 3rd-party tools. Show me.
Tip: The install process drops a Git Bashicon on your desktop. You can delete this icon; we don't believe this entry point leads to the best experience. And anyway, you can still get to it from Windows Start if for some reason you need it later.
Open the Git command prompt window
You can open the command prompt from the Actions menu on the Changes, Commits, and Branches pages. You can also open it from the Connect page: Right-click your local repo, and then click Open Command Prompt. Show me.
Work from the command prompt
We hope you find the following table to be a useful if not complete guide to some of the more common tasks. You can find more command-prompt reference information here: http://git-scm.com/docs.
Caution: If you are not an experienced Git user, use the command-prompt carefully. Make sure to research the command thoroughly before you use it.
| Task | Visual Studio | Command Prompt |
Create a local repository | Yes | git-init |
Copy a remote repository to your dev machine | Yes | git-clone |
Fetch and pull changes from a remote repository | Yes (some conflicts can be resolved only at command prompt) | git-fetch, git-pull |
Get information about a repository | You can if it is in a TFS team project (shown in bold text and with hover info in Team Explorer) | git-remote |
Commit your changes | Yes | git-commit |
Amend your last commit. Some typical cases:
| No | git-commit |
Undo a committed change by applying the inverse of the commit. See rolling back changes with revert. | No | git-revert |
Undo committed changes by returning your local repo to a prior commit and de-referencing the later commit. See Undoing Things, which warns, "...this is a dangerous command: any changes you made to that file are gone — you just copied another file over it. Don’t ever use this command unless you absolutely know that you don’t want the file." | No | git reset |
Branch and merge | Yes (some conflicts can be resolved only at command prompt). (We plan to post more info on branches. For now, see our announcement post.) | git-branch, git-merge |
Re-order history or combine commits. See Git Branching - Rebasing. | No | git-rebase |
Push changes to a remote repository | Yes | git-push |