Interactive Rebase

Interactive Rebase: Squash, Reorder, Fixup, Polish

After this page you can rewrite a short chain of local commits on Linux without a GUI.

Open the todo list

cd ~/desk/desk-api
git switch feat/ping-json
git rebase -i HEAD~3

Git writes a file and opens core.editor (nvim in this book). Each line is a commit, oldest first:

pick a1b2c3d feat(ping): return a dict
pick d4e5f6a docs: mention JSON
pick 98ab765 fix typo

You edit the verbs, save, quit. Git replays from the top.

Verbs you will use

Verb	Effect
pick	Keep this commit
reword	Keep, edit the message
edit	Stop here so you can amend
squash	Fold into the previous commit; editor for a combined message
fixup	Fold into the previous commit; keep the previous message
drop	Omit this commit

Reorder lines to reorder commits. Delete a line to drop (same as drop).

Linux without the editor (labs)

For a scripted squash of everything after the first of the last three:

GIT_SEQUENCE_EDITOR="sed -i '2,\$s/^pick /fixup /'" git rebase -i HEAD~3

sed -i on GNU sed (Linux) edits in place. This is for labs and hooks. Day to day, use nvim.

Stop and amend (edit)

Git stops at that commit. You git add / git commit --amend, then:

git rebase --continue

Abort

git rebase --abort

Back to the pre-rebase branch tip. Safe while the rebase is in progress.

Range

git rebase -i main rebases each commit reachable from HEAD but not from main. That is the usual “update my feature onto main” todo list.

Do this on a feature branch. Interactive rebase of shared main rewrites hashes everyone already has.