How to Fix a Git Commit Message With git amend

What git commit --amend does

--amend replaces the most recent commit with a new one. The new commit has the same parent, the same file tree, and the same author - but a fresh SHA and (optionally) a new message or staged changes. To the history it looks like you never made the mistake.

Fix the message before you push

cd /workspace/repo

# See the current (bad) message
git log -1 --oneline

# Rewrite just the message - nothing else changes
git commit --amend -m "feat: add new health endpoint"

# Confirm the new message
git log -1 --oneline

The old commit hash is gone and a new one takes its place. Because the commit hasn't been pushed yet, nobody else has the old hash - so this rewrite is completely safe.

What if you also want to add a forgotten file?

Stage it first, then amend:

git add src/health.py
git commit --amend --no-edit   # keep the existing message, add the staged file

--no-edit skips the editor so the message stays unchanged.

When NOT to amend

Once a commit is on a remote shared branch, --amend becomes a force-push - it rewrites history under your teammates' feet. The rule is simple:

• Unpushed commit - amend freely.
• Pushed to a shared branch - don't amend; use git revert or make a follow-up commit instead.

If you must amend a pushed branch (e.g. your own feature branch, no open PRs), follow up with git push --force-with-lease (safer than --force - it checks that nobody else pushed in the meantime).

Conventional commit format

Keeping to a consistent format makes amended messages easier to get right. The Conventional Commits spec uses:

<type>(<scope>): <short summary>

feat: add new health endpoint
fix: correct off-by-one in pagination
chore: update dependencies

Pair it with commitlint in CI and you catch malformed messages before they ever reach the remote.