Does Git store amends?

Question

I know they exist in git reflog, but if I push a commit to a remote repository, amend, then git push --force (warning: pushing --force to remote repositories should usually be avoided), will the commit that I overwrote exist somewhere?

Answer 1

will the commit that I overwrote exist somewhere?

Only in:

• the reflog of your local repo
• the reflog of your remote upstream repo (where that commit were previously published).
  That upstream repo is usually a bare one, as kostix comments, so core.logAllRefUpdates needs to be true, if you want to see the reflog in said bare upstream repo.
• any other other local clone of your remote repo, done before your second git push (--force) by other people.

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Note that ORIG_HEAD (a memento from a time where reflog didn't existed yet) is not created/updated by a git commit (like a git commit --amend or a git commit --amend -m "new comment").
So if the reflog isn't activated on a repo, ORIG_HEAD cannot be used to reference the amended commit.

Answer 2

No. Your amended commit will stay in your local repo for some time, but it won't be pushed.

When pushing, Git computes the missing commits to have the remote branch at the same point as your local branch. Since your amended commit is not on the branch anymore, it won't be pushed.

An amended commit stays until a garbage collection occur. But GC check several conditions before removing a commit, so don't be afraid of losing data.