For when you've got a local git repo that's just too hard to recover

fix-git

#!/bin/bash

# Author: Zoey Llewellyn "Zobean" Hewll
#
# Usage: fix-git [REMOTE-URL]
#   Must be run from the root directory of the repository.
#   If a remote is not supplied, it will be read from .git/config
# 
# For when you have a corrupted local repo, but a trusted remote.
# This script replaces all your history with that of the remote.
# If there is a .git, it is backed up as .git_old, removing the last backup.
# This does not affect your working tree.
#
# This does not currently work with submodules!
# This will abort if a suspected submodule is found.
# You will have to delete them first
# and re-clone them after (with `git submodule update --init`)
#
# Error codes:
# 1: If a url is not supplied, and one cannot be read from .git/config
# 4: If the url cannot be reached
# 5: If a git submodule is detected


if [[ "$(find -name .git -not -path ./.git | wc -l)" -gt 0 ]] ;
then
    echo "It looks like this repo uses submodules" >&2
    echo "You will need to remove them before this script can safely execute" >&2
    echo "Then use \`git submodule update --init\` to re-clone them" >&2
    exit 5
fi

if [[ $# -ge 1 ]] ;
then
    url="$1"
else
    if ! url="$(git config --local --get remote.origin.url)" ;
    then
        echo "Unable to find remote 'origin': missing in '.git/config'" >&2
        exit 1
    fi
fi
url_base="$(echo "${url}" | sed -E 's;^([^/]*://)?([^/]*)(/.*)?$;\2;')"
echo "Attempting to access ${url_base} before continuing"
if ! wget -p "${url_base}" -O /dev/null -q --dns-timeout=5 --connect-timeout=5 ;
then
    echo "Unable to reach ${url_base}: Aborting before any damage is done" >&2
    exit 4
fi

echo
echo "This operation will replace the local repo with the remote at:"
echo "${url}"
echo
echo "This will completely rewrite history,"
echo "but will leave your working tree intact"
echo -n "Are you sure? (y/N): "

read confirm
if ! [ -t 0 ] ; # i'm open in a pipe
then
    # print the piped input
    echo "${confirm}"
fi
if echo "${confirm}"|grep -Eq "[Yy]+[EeSs]*" ; # it looks like a yes
then
    if [[ -e .git ]] ;
    then
        # remove old backup
        rm -vrf .git_old | tail -n 1 &&
        # backup .git iff it exists
        mv -v .git .git_old
    fi &&
    git init &&
    git remote add origin "${url}" &&
    git config --local --get remote.origin.url | sed 's/^/Added remote origin at /' &&
    git fetch &&
    git reset origin/master --mixed
else
    echo "Aborting without doing anything"
fi

The script doesn't setup the remote tracking branch correctly after reinitialising. you have to also "git branch --set-upstream-to=origin/<branchname> <branchname>" given origin is the remote's name