Why do local changes get overwritten when trying to do a git pull, and how to avoid it?

A merge conflict or overwriting of local changes occurs when you have made edits to working files on your computer but have not committed them, and then tried to update your local branch from a remote repository. Git tries to protect the history, but in certain scenarios it may throw an error or forcibly merge changes, leading to confusion.

The best way to prevent data loss is to properly organize your workflow. Always commit your intermediate local work before performing any network operations with the remote repository.

If conflicts occur during the restoration process, Git will pause the operation and ask you to manually resolve the discrepancies in the code. Open the files in an editor, find the conflict markers, choose the correct code variant, and remove the extra marker lines.

After resolving all conflicts, be sure to add the modified files to the staging area via git add and complete the merge operation. Using the stash temporary storage allows you to safely switch between branches and update code without the risk of losing the results of your labor.