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How to recover `rm .git/index`?

How to recover rm .git/index

If, in order to fix this git error message

fatal: Unable to create '/path/to/repo/.git/index.lock': File exists.

If no other git process is currently running, this probably means a git process crashed in this repository earlier. Make sure no other git process is running and remove the file manually to continue.

you inadvertently rm .git/index instead of rm .git/index.lock, your repository index will be messed up.
Here is how to fix it:

git read-tree --reset HEAD



last updated february 2020