Round 3: Troubleshooting¶
The troubleshooting round starts with a symptom and no instructions. Interviewers score the path more than the final answer: whether the candidate asks the right questions, forms hypotheses, and checks the cheapest and most likely causes first. This page grows as each module is added.
Method¶
- Restate the symptom in one sentence and confirm it: what fails, on which branch, since when.
- Ask clarifying questions that split the problem: local or pushed, one branch or many, since a rebase or a merge.
- Form two or three hypotheses and say which is most likely and why.
- Check in order of cost: read-only commands first (
git status,git log --graph,git reflog,git diff), changes last. - Fix the proven cause only, then verify with the same command that found it.
- Name the prevention: the control that stops a repeat.
Reaching for --force before reading the state loses points
A blind git push --force or git reset --hard as a first move suggests guessing. Say what you would look at first (git status, git reflog, git log --graph --all) and what each result would mean.
Scenario Index¶
| Scenario | Symptom as asked | Modules |
|---|---|---|
| Accidental Commit to Main | "I committed to main before making a branch, nothing is pushed. Move the work off main." | 01 Core Workflow, 02 Branching and Merging |
| Wrong-Branch Commits | "Commits landed on main but belong on an existing feature branch. Relocate them." | 01 Core Workflow, 02 Branching and Merging |
| Merge Conflict Resolution | "A pull stopped with a conflict and the repo is stuck. Get it merged cleanly." | 02 Branching and Merging |
| Detached HEAD | "Git says detached HEAD and I made commits here. Keep them." | 02 Branching and Merging |
| Diverged Branches, Push Rejected | "My push was rejected, the remote has work I do not. Push mine without losing theirs." | 03 Remotes and Collaboration |
| Messy History Before a PR | "My branch is wip/fix/fix-again commits. Make it clean before the PR." | 02 Branching and Merging, 04 Team Workflows |
| Lost Commits After Reset | "reset --hard ate a day of commits. Get them back." | 05 History and Recovery |
| Committed a Secret | "A password is in history and a scanner flags it. Clean it up." | 05 History and Recovery |
| Force-Push Clobbered a Teammate | "A force-push deleted my commit from the remote. Recover it." | 03 Remotes and Collaboration, 05 History and Recovery |
| Bloated Repo, Large File | "The repo is huge but the files are tiny. Get the size back." | 07 Advanced Tooling |