cherrypick

Cherry-pick is a term used in software development to describe the practice of selecting a specific change, such as a commit, from one branch and applying it to another. The metaphor comes from choosing the best item, rather than copying an entire set, to bring a targeted improvement or fix into a different line of development.

In version control systems such as Git, cherry-pick refers to applying the changes introduced by an existing commit onto the current branch. This creates a new commit on the target branch that contains the same changes as the original, but with a new commit hash. Options such as -x can record a trace that shows the original commit in the new commit message.

Common use cases include backporting a bug fix from a main or development branch to a release or maintenance branch, or selectively applying a critical patch across multiple branches without merging unrelated work. Cherry-picking can be done for single commits or for a range of commits, but may require resolving conflicts if the surrounding code has diverged.

Potential drawbacks include history fragmentation, duplication of changes, and conflicts that arise when the same changes are later merged or rebased. Cherry-picking is not always suitable for large features or long-lived branches, where a full merge or rebase might be cleaner. Some teams prefer formal backport workflows or patch series to manage targeted changes in a more trackable fashion.