I commit to a git repository for the first time; I then regret the commit and want to revert it. I try
# git reset --hard HEAD~1
I get this message:
fatal: ambiguous argument 'HEAD~1': unknown revision or path not in the working tree.
This commit is the first commit of the repository. Any idea how to undo git's initial commit?
I will throw in what worked for me in the end. I needed to remove the initial commit on a repository as quarantined data had been misplaced, the commit had already been pushed.
Make sure you are are currently on the right branch.
git checkout master
git update-ref -d HEAD
git commit -m "Initial commit
git push -u origin master
This was able to resolve the problem.
Important
This was on an internal repository which was not publicly accessible, if your repository was publicly accessible please assume anything you need to revert has already been pulled down by someone else.
I wonder why "amend" is not suggest and have been crossed out by @damkrat, as amend appears to me as just the right way to resolve the most efficiently the underlying problem of fixing the wrong commit since there is no purpose of having no initial commit. As some stressed out you should only modify "public" branch like master if no one has clone your repo...
git add <your different stuff>
git commit --amend --author="author name <author.name@email.com>"-m "new message"
For me:
git update-ref -d HEAD
git rm --cached . -r
First line was as suggested by CB Bailey (not sure why the second line was necessary, but git didn't uncommit the files until I did that - I could tell by running git status before and after the second line above)