Rebase On Fresh Base After Merge

Start the next change from a fresh base

When to use

You just landed a PR (or the user says "I merged it"), and you're about to make the next change in the same repo. The working tree is still on the feature branch that was merged, or on a stale local master / main.

Problem

Three related failure modes:

1. Branching off a stale base. Local master hasn't been fetched since the merge, so a new branch cut from it is missing the commits that were just merged upstream. The next PR will show a confusing diff (including files you didn't touch) or fail to merge cleanly.
2. Reusing the old feature branch. Appending new commits to the already-merged branch and pushing again creates a "PR #2 on the same branch" situation — GitHub may refuse to open it, or will show the old merged commits in the diff.
3. Uncommitted edits trapped on the wrong branch. You already made edits for the next task while still on the old branch; a naive git checkout master either fails or silently drags the edits along to a base that doesn't match them.

Symptom example:

$ git log --oneline origin/master..HEAD
fac933f Seed agent-skills with format spec and initial 7 skills   # already merged!

Solution

Standard recipe, safe with or without uncommitted edits:

# 0. (If you have unstaged edits for the next task) stash them
git -C <repo> stash push -u -m "wip-<next-task>"

# 1. Sync local refs with the remote
git -C <repo> fetch origin --prune

# 2. Find the real default branch — don't assume main or master
default=$(git -C <repo> symbolic-ref refs/remotes/origin/HEAD | sed 's@^.*/@@')

# 3. Fast-forward local default to origin
git -C <repo> checkout "$default"
git -C <repo> pull --ff-only origin "$default"

# 4. Cut the new branch from the fresh base
git -C <repo> checkout -b <new-slug>

# 5. Reapply the stashed edits (if step 0 happened)
git -C <repo> stash pop

# 6. Verify you're actually ahead of origin/$default by 0 commits
git -C <repo> log --oneline "origin/$default..HEAD"   # should be empty

Then commit, push, open the PR as usual (github-pr-via-gh-cli).

Example

Wrong — reusing the merged branch:

# still on seed-initial-skills, which was merged in PR #1
git add README.md
git commit -m "tweak"
git push                 # pushes to the old, already-merged branch
gh pr create ...         # "No commits between master and seed-initial-skills"

Right — fresh branch off updated master:

git stash push -u -m "wip-update-readme"
git fetch origin --prune
git checkout master
git pull --ff-only origin master
git checkout -b update-readme
git stash pop
# edit / add / commit / push / gh pr create

Pitfalls

• git pull without --ff-only can create an unexpected merge commit on local master if you ever committed there directly. Always use --ff-only.

• git checkout master without stashing first will fail when the edits conflict with tracked files on master; the stash dance above avoids the ambiguity.

• If the PR was squashed on merge, your local feature branch's commits won't appear in origin/master by hash — that's expected, don't try to "rescue" them.

• Clean up the merged local branch — and use the gone signal to know it's safe. GitHub repos with Automatically delete head branches enabled (the default for new repos, e.g. chen3feng/agent-skills, blade-build/blade-build) delete the remote branch on merge. After git fetch --prune origin, the local side shows it as gone:

  $ git branch -vv
  * master                           652f6e6 [origin/master] Merge …
    skills/python-indent-aware-edits 9f7db46 [origin/skills/python-indent-aware-edits: gone] docs(skill): add …
  

  Prefer the safe delete git branch -d <old-slug>; it refuses if the branch isn't fully merged into its upstream, which is the correct behavior when the PR was rebased/fast-forwarded. Only fall back to git branch -D <old-slug> when the PR was squashed (commits exist in origin/master by content but not by hash, so -d refuses). If -d refuses and the PR wasn't squashed, stop and investigate — something is off.

See also

• github-pr-via-gh-cli
• git-commit-author-identity