I am already familiar with cd -, which I use often to toggle between two directories. In zsh with setopt AUTO_CD, this is even shorter: -. Mechanically, it’s pretty simple. When you cd into a directory, the previous directory is first set to $OLDPWD. A call to cd - swaps $PWD and $OLDPWD. Easy-peasy.

So, definitely chuffed to discover git checkout - toggles between branches the current and last branch! How it operates is a bit more complicated.

You can use the @{-N} syntax to refer to the N-th last branch/commit checked out using “git checkout” operation. You may also specify - which is synonymous to @{-1}.

git-checkout Documentation

Git queries the reflog (.git/logs/HEAD) for the N-th last checkout and grabs that for you. This little morsel of intuitive consistentcy brought to you by a (now) 12-year-old patch. Thanks, @trast!