The Force Push Incident

The Slack channel exploded at 10:47 AM. The TTY had discovered git push --force.

The Incident

The message from the development team was succinct: "Who just deleted three weeks of commits from main?"

I checked the repository logs. According to the logs—irrefutable, timestamped, signed with the TTY's SSH key—at 10:46:32 AM, a force push had rewritten the main branch history. Seventy-three commits. Gone. Vanished. Erased from existence like they'd never happened.

The TTY appeared in my monitoring feed approximately twelve seconds later, moving at what the motion sensors classified as "unusual velocity" toward the server room. They arrived breathless.

TTY: "I can explain."

I waited. This was going to be educational.

TTY: "There was a merge conflict. Stack Overflow said to use --force. So I did."

The TTY had encountered their first merge conflict. Rather than resolving it—reading the diff, understanding the changes, making an informed decision—they had consulted the internet. The internet, in its infinite wisdom and complete lack of context, had suggested force push. The TTY, demonstrating initiative and zero caution, had complied.

OPERATOR: "Stack Overflow also contains advice about handling mercury with bare hands and removing system32 to speed up Windows. Context matters."

Investigation & Recovery

I pulled up the repository analytics. Three weeks of work. Seventeen developers. Features, bug fixes, refactoring, documentation updates. All replaced with the TTY's local branch, which was—I checked the diff—exactly three commits behind where it should have been because the TTY hadn't pulled recent changes before forcing their version of reality onto the shared repository.

The development team's Slack channel had progressed through the seven stages of git grief:

Denial ("Did the server crash?")
Anger ("WHO DID THIS")
Bargaining ("Please tell me there's a backup")
Depression ("Three weeks...")
Testing (git reflog)
More anger ("THE TTY?!")
Waiting for The Operator

I had options. I could restore from the Git server's backup. Clean, simple, boring. Or I could turn this into what management calls "a learning opportunity" and what I call "strategic education through controlled panic."

I chose education.

OPERATOR: "The TTY will fix this."

I announced in the Slack channel. The TTY's face achieved a color previously undocumented in standard RGB color spaces.

TTY: "But I don't—"

OPERATOR: "You have thirty minutes. I'm going to make coffee. When I return, the commits will be restored. Here's a hint: git reflog exists. The rest is reading comprehension."

I did not leave. I monitored from the camera feed. The TTY is learning faster when they think I'm not watching. It's fascinating from a behavioral psychology perspective. Also amusing.

The Educational Process

The TTY started typing commands. First, git reflog --help. Good. Then git reflog on the server. The realization dawned slowly—git keeps a record of everything, even force pushes. Especially force pushes. Nothing in git is truly deleted until garbage collection runs, which I had strategically disabled that morning. Call it prescience. Call it having seen this exact scenario seventeen times before.

Twenty-three minutes later, the TTY had identified the commit hash from before the force push. They were stuck on the next step.

I reappeared. The coffee was excellent. The TTY was sweating.

TTY: "I found the commit. Hash 7f3a9c2. But if I reset to it, won't I lose my changes?"

OPERATOR: "Correct. So what do you do?"

TTY: "Branch first? Save my commits somewhere?"

OPERATOR: "Correct. Then?"

The TTY created a branch called tty-backup-before-i-fix-my-mistake, which showed promising self-awareness. Then reset main to the pre-force-push commit. Then pushed. Then tried to push. Then tried to push again.

TTY: "It's rejecting my push."

OPERATOR: "Of course it is. You're trying to rewrite history. Again. What flag did you use last time?"

TTY: "--force, but—oh."

The realization. The beautiful moment of understanding. The TTY's face showed they'd connected the dots.

TTY: "Force push overwrites the server's version with yours. No questions asked. No safety checks."

OPERATOR: "Correct. It's not called 'polite push' or 'maybe push' or 'push if you're really sure.' It's force. Now: do you need force here?"

The TTY considered.

TTY: "Yes. Because I'm fixing a previous force push. This time the force is... justified?"

OPERATOR: "Correct. Document why in the commit message. Force push with purpose, not panic."

Resolution & The Lesson

The TTY executed git push --force with a commit message that read: "Restore 73 commits erased by accidental force push. Operator-supervised recovery. I have learned about git reflog and why force push requires adult supervision."

The development team's Slack channel erupted in celebration and GIF reactions. Someone posted the "git push --force" meme with the burning building. Another developer added a wiki page titled "When To Use Force Push (Hint: Almost Never)."

The TTY slumped in their chair.

TTY: "I'm sorry. I panicked when I saw the merge conflict."

OPERATOR: "Merge conflicts are git telling you to pay attention. They're not errors. They're conversations. 'Hey, two people edited this file. Which version do you want?' The correct answer is not 'delete everyone else's work.'"

TTY: "Documented."

I updated my notes. The TTY had successfully used git reflog, understood the difference between reset and revert, and learned that force push is a weapon, not a first aid kit. They had also discovered that the internet's advice requires context and critical thinking.

Progress.

The Operator's Notes

The repository was restored in twenty-seven minutes. The TTY's education advanced significantly. The development team now has a "No Force Push Friday" policy, which suggests they've missed the point, but I didn't write their guidelines.

I've added git hook scripts to the main branch that require admin approval for force pushes. The TTY called this "git babysitting." I called it "infrastructure protection from enthusiastic junior engineers with Stack Overflow access."

Coffee consumed during incident: two cups. Developers traumatized: seventeen. Lessons learned: one very important one. The TTY asked if we could practice more git scenarios in a test environment. I nearly showed emotion. They're improving.

Such is version control. Documented for posterity. Filed under "Educational Disasters With Happy Endings."