git push --force-with-lease

git push --force-with-lease is the “safer” version of a force push.

What it does

It force-updates the remote branch only if the remote branch is in the state you expect.

In other words:

• It checks that no one else has pushed new commits to the remote branch since your last fetch.
• If the remote has changed → the push is rejected.
• If it hasn’t changed → your force push goes through.

Why this matters

A plain git push --force will overwrite the remote branch no matter what, potentially deleting other people’s work.

--force-with-lease protects against that.

Example scenario

1. You and a teammate both work on feature-branch

2. You rewrite history locally (e.g. rebase, commit --amend)

3. You run:

   git push --force-with-lease
   

• ✅ If no one else pushed → success
• ❌ If your teammate pushed → Git stops you instead of overwriting their commits

When to use it

Use --force-with-lease when:

• You rebased a branch
• You amended commits
• You cleaned up history before merging

Rule of thumb

If you think you need --force, you almost always want:

git push --force-with-lease

Optional stricter form

You can be explicit about what you expect:

git push --force-with-lease=origin/feature-branch

This tightens the safety check further.