Revert a shared commit

When a bad commit is already shared, preserve history and add a new commit that reverses its changes.

Start with a clean working tree. Inspect the target commit before changing anything:

git status
git show --stat 4f72a1c

Then revert it:

git revert 4f72a1c

Git applies the inverse patch and opens a commit message. The original commit remains in history, and the current branch moves to a new revert commit.

Verify both commits:

git log -2 --oneline
git show --stat HEAD

A revert can conflict when later work changed the same lines. Resolve it like a merge conflict, stage the result, then run git revert --continue. Use git revert --abort to return to the pre-revert state.

Revert is safer for shared history because collaborators can fetch a normal new commit. It does not require everyone to replace an existing commit ID.

Exercise: commit a line, commit another unrelated line, then revert the first commit. Confirm that the unrelated later change remains.