git reset --hard does not only modify the work tree though, it also updates where your current branch points to. In fact, that is the main purpose of ‘git reset

git reset --hard does not only modify the work tree though, it also updates where your current branch points to. In fact, that is the main purpose of ‘git reset’, the fact that it modified your work tree at all is only because of the ‘--hard’ flag. So it’s not correct to say that “reset --hard and checkout do basically the same thing”.