git cherry-pick

git cherry-pick <sha> takes the changes from a specific commit and applies them to your branch. No full history, no merge, no rebase. Just that one commit.

Basic form

git switch main

git cherry-pick a1b2c3d

# creates a new commit on main with the same content

# as a1b2c3d, but with a new SHA

The commit message is copied as-is. You can append a cherry-picked from annotation:

git cherry-pick -x a1b2c3d

# Appends to the message:

# (cherry picked from commit a1b2c3d...)

This is useful for audits: you can see that the commit is a copy of another.

Typical scenarios

Hotfix across multiple release branches.

# Fixed a bug on main

git switch main

git commit -m "fix: handle null in user.profile"

# SHA = a1b2c3d

# Ported to release/v1.4

git switch release/v1.4

git cherry-pick a1b2c3d

# And to release/v1.5

git switch release/v1.5

git cherry-pick a1b2c3d

Rescue a useful commit from an abandoned branch.

Someone started a branch, left it, moved on. A few of those commits would be handy. cherry-pick the ones you need.

A commit landed on the wrong branch.

You committed to main instead of feature.

# Save the SHA

LAST=$(git rev-parse HEAD)

# Roll main back one commit

git reset --hard HEAD~1

# Apply it to feature

git switch feature

git cherry-pick $LAST

Range of commits

git cherry-pick A..B          # commits after A up to B inclusive

                               # (A itself is excluded)

git cherry-pick A^..B         # including A

They are applied one at a time in the original order. If any commit causes a conflict, Git stops.

--no-commit

git cherry-pick -n a1b2c3d

# Applies the changes but does not commit; leaves them in the index

Useful when you want to combine several cherry-picks into one commit:

git cherry-pick -n sha1 sha2 sha3

git commit -m "backport: nullability fixes from main"

Conflict

Resolved the same way as in merge or rebase:

# Conflict after cherry-pick: edit the files,

# remove the markers

git add <files>

git cherry-pick --continue

# or abort:

git cherry-pick --abort

Pitfalls

• Duplicate commits. After cherry-pick, the same set of changes exists in two commits with different SHAs. A subsequent merge between the branches can produce a spurious conflict.
• Dependencies. cherry-pick moves one commit without its predecessors. If that commit depended on something introduced in an earlier commit on the source branch, that earlier code may not exist on the target branch, and the build will break.
• Merge commits. cherry-pick on a merge commit requires the -m N flag to specify which parent is the "main" one. This is usually more complicated than it looks. In most cases it is easier to cherry-pick each individual commit from the merged branch separately.