What Does Cherry-Picking a Git Commit Mean?

Cherry-picking a git commit means to select a specific commit from any branch and applying it to another. For example, to cherry-pick a commit with the hash "3ba53ff050ef253058088eff5" to a branch called "foo", you would do the following:

# 1: switch to the target branch
git switch foo

# 2: cherry-pick commit and apply it to target branch
git cherry-pick 3ba53ff050ef253058088eff5

When you cherry-pick a git commit, the following is true:

• The commit in the source branch is not removed;
• A copy of the commit with the same changes and the same commit message is created in the target branch;
• The history of the target branch is not altered, but rather added to, as a new, distinct commit is created.

Cherry-picking is useful in certain situations, even though it may not always be a best practice (as it can result in duplicate commits).