Git
Chapters ▾ 2nd Edition

1.7 Getting Started - Getting Help

Getting Help

If you ever need help while using Git, there are three equivalent ways to get the comprehensive manual page (manpage) help for any of the Git commands:

$ git help <verb>
$ git <verb> --help
$ man git-<verb>

For example, you can get the manpage help for the git config command by running this:

$ git help config

These commands are nice because you can access them anywhere, even offline. If the manpages and this book aren’t enough and you need in-person help, you can try the #git, #github, or #gitlab channels on the Libera Chat IRC server, which can be found at https://libera.chat/. These channels are regularly filled with hundreds of people who are all very knowledgeable about Git and are often willing to help.

In addition, if you don’t need the full-blown manpage help, but just need a quick refresher on the available options for a Git command, you can ask for the more concise “help” output with the -h option, as in:

$ git add -h
usage: git add [<options>] [--] <pathspec>...

    -n, --dry-run               dry run
    -v, --verbose               be verbose

    -i, --interactive           interactive picking
    -p, --patch                 select hunks interactively
    -e, --edit                  edit current diff and apply
    -f, --force                 allow adding otherwise ignored files
    -u, --update                update tracked files
    --renormalize               renormalize EOL of tracked files (implies -u)
    -N, --intent-to-add         record only the fact that the path will be added later
    -A, --all                   add changes from all tracked and untracked files
    --ignore-removal            ignore paths removed in the working tree (same as --no-all)
    --refresh                   don't add, only refresh the index
    --ignore-errors             just skip files which cannot be added because of errors
    --ignore-missing            check if - even missing - files are ignored in dry run
    --sparse                    allow updating entries outside of the sparse-checkout cone
    --chmod (+|-)x              override the executable bit of the listed files
    --pathspec-from-file <file> read pathspec from file
    --pathspec-file-nul         with --pathspec-from-file, pathspec elements are separated with NUL character
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