View the previous HEAD after disruptive operations.
Section: Recovery and Debugging
Inspect ORIG_HEAD
bash
bash
git show ORIG_HEADExplanation
Helpful after merge, pull, reset, and rebase operations when you need to inspect where HEAD was before the change.
Learn the surrounding workflow
Compare similar commands or jump into common fixes when this command is part of a bigger troubleshooting path.
Related commands
Same sheet · prioritizing Recovery and Debugging
Show reflog with local timestamps
Inspect branch and HEAD movements with readable times.
Check repository integrity
Verify object connectivity and repository health.
Start a bisect session
Begin a binary search to find the commit that introduced a bug.
Interactive rebase last 5 commits
Open the last 5 commits in the interactive rebase todo list.
Create an additional worktree for a branch
Check out another branch in a separate directory without cloning again.
Cherry-pick a range without committing
Apply commit changes into the index and working tree first.