Cautious Workflow to Check Before Pulling

1. Ensure You Are on the Right Branch:

   First, make sure you are on the correct local branch where you plan to pull changes.

   git branch

   If you’re not on the correct branch, switch to it:

   git checkout <branch-name>

2. Fetch the Latest Changes Without Merging:

   Instead of pulling, first fetch the latest changes from the remote branch to update your local repository with the latest metadata without merging or modifying your working directory:

   git fetch origin

   This will update your local information about the remote branch but won’t apply any changes to your working directory.

3. Check the Differences Before Pulling:

   Now that you’ve fetched the latest changes, compare your local branch with the remote branch to see what changes would be applied if you pulled:

   git diff <branch> origin/<branch>

   This command will show the differences between your local branch and the remote branch (e.g., origin/main for the main branch). Review the differences carefully.

4. Check for Incoming Commits:

   To see which commits are incoming (what will be merged into your branch), you can run:

   git log <branch>..origin/<branch>

   This command shows a log of commits that exist on the remote branch but not on your local branch.

5. Check for Conflicts:

   Before pulling, you may want to check if there are any potential conflicts with your local changes. You can do a “dry run” merge using:

   git merge --no-commit --no-ff origin/<branch>

   If there are conflicts, Git will notify you, but it won’t actually perform the merge since you used --no-commit --no-ff. You can abort the merge at this point if there are conflicts or if you’re not ready to pull.

   To abort the merge (if you used --no-commit), use:

   git merge --abort

6. Pull the Latest Changes:

Once you’re satisfied that yu understand what changes are coming and there are no conflicts, you can safely pull the latest changes:

git pull origin <branch>

Summary of Cautious Workflow

1. Ensure you’re on the correct branch (git branch).
2. Fetch remote changes without modifying your working directory (git fetch).
3. Review the differences betwe en your local and remote branches (git diff).
4. Review the incoming commits (git log <branch>..origin/<branch>).
5. Optionally perform a “dry run” merge to check for conflicts (git merge --no-commit --no-ff).
6. Pull the changes when you’re confident (git pull).