Reset Local Repo to Match Remote Repo Exactly

expand_circle_right October 2, 2025

At any point, you may want to completely reset your local project so it matches the remote repo exactly (discarding any local changes, extra files, etc.).

Here are the safe ways depending on how “hard” a reset you need:

Option 1: Reset branch to remote (keeps untracked files)

bash

git fetch --all
git reset --hard origin/main

Discards local commits
Resets all tracked files to the remote state
Leaves untracked files (stuff Git doesn’t know about) in your working directory

Option 2: Reset branch and also delete untracked files

bash

git fetch --all
git reset --hard origin/main
git clean -fd

-f means force
-d means removing untracked directories too
After this, your working directory (local project repo) matches to the remote repo exactly.

Option 3: Really start fresh (nuke & re-clone)

bash

cd ..
rm -rf your-project-folder
git clone https://github.com/your-username/your-repo.git
cd your-repo

Above is simplest and cleanest
This guarantees no leftover files or configs
Useful if you’ve had a lot of messy local changes

origin/main vs origin main

origin/main is a ref name (a branch), single argument.

origin is your remote name.
main is the branch on that remote.
Together, origin/main means “the main branch as last fetched from origin.”

Example:

bash

git reset --hard origin/main

→ Resets your current branch to exactly match the remote tracking branch.

But git interprets origin main as two separate arguments.

Example:

bash

git push -u origin main

Note: the option -u is to update pushing history for later use. So, no need origin main later and only git push will do git push origin main.

Git interprets the arguments like this:

origin → the name of the remote (a shortcut for the remote URL).
main → the local branch you want to push.
Because you didn’t specify a remote branch, Git assumes you want to push main → main (same branch name on the remote).

The complete command syntax is:

bash

git push <remote> <local-branch>:<remote-branch>

So, to push local main branch to remote production branch is:

bash

git push origin main:production

git reset origin main

The git reset command expects only one revision (like HEAD, abc123, origin/main). If you give it two, Git complains:

bash

git reset --hard origin main
# error: unknown switch `m'
# fatal: ambiguous argument 'origin': unknown revision or path not in the working tree.

Where You can Learn Git?

Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.
The official website is:
https://git-scm.com/
and, cheat-sheet and references are:
https://git-scm.com/cheat-sheet
https://git-scm.com/docs

Categories • Tech • Dev