I used jujutsu restore

[2026-01-17]

First things first, Git doesn't push empty folders.So when working on a group project with a folder structure initialization script make sure that it does not override current files.

So Here is what happenned...

PersonA calls the initialization script on their machine and works on folderA whilst leaving FolderB and FolderC generated by the script untouched. They push and personB(me) clones repo and realizes that some folders are missing.

personB not being aware that the initialization script overrides files of similar name loses some files already personA worked on.

But here is the sweet thing: personB was on a new changeID already.

I was like let me simply merge personA last commit with personB(my) new commit but the files were still lost ie that is "jj new oldChangeId newChangeId".

Then I remembered that sometimes if you delete files from one commit and try to merge it with a new one, the new state overrides the old commits. shucks!!

I had to "jj undo" to unmerge.

td;dr "jj new oldChangeId newChangeId" did not work.

After hitting the docs, I came across "jj restore". I simply "jj restore --from oldChangeId --into newChangeId" and I lost all the new files I worked on. In the brink of lashing out at martinvonz(creator of jj), a small sentence stated that you can add "[filesets]" and I added it to the tail of the command.

"jj restore --from oldChangeId --into newChangeId [filesets]" and lo and behold, I got the files back.