How to undo the initial commit on a remote repository in git?

Question

If my very first commit is wrong, yet pushed to a (currently private) remote, how do I undo that commit on the remote?

I'm guessing I can just amend and then push --force?

Answer 1

By deleting your HEAD you can restore your repository to a new state, where you can create a new initial commit:

git update-ref -d HEAD

After you create a new commit you will need to force it to the remote in order to overwrite the previous initial commit:

git push --force origin

Answer 2

If you've just one commit (initial commit), you can do as

git commit --amend
git push --force origin