jason-in-tech Rebase to Latest Develop
Rebase the current working branch onto the latest origin/develop, preserving any uncommitted local changes. Supports Graphite stacked branches — when the current branch has a parent that is not develop, rebase the parent chain first.
Prerequisites
- Must NOT be on the
developbranch itself. If so, abort and tell the user. - If the rebase is being triggered to resolve a Roboflow stale-branch error:
STOP and ask the user first. Rebasing is NOT the only option — env var bypass
(
CRUISE_BYPASS_BAD_COMMITS+STALE_CODE_REASON) avoids rebasing entirely and preserves code parity for experiment comparisons. See theverify-before-claimingrule for the full decision framework.
Workflow
Run these steps in order. Stop and resolve if any step fails.
1. Identify the current branch and stack
git branch --show-current
Abort if the branch is develop.
Check if the branch is part of a Graphite stack:
gt log short 2>/dev/null
If Graphite is available and the branch has a parent that is not develop, note the parent branch name. The parent must be rebased first (step 4a) before the current branch (step 4b).
2. Fetch latest develop
git fetch origin develop
3. Stash uncommitted changes
git stash
Note whether the output says No local changes to save (nothing was stashed) or Saved working directory… (changes were stashed). Track this so you know whether to pop later.
4. Rebase
4a. Rebase parent branch (if stacked)
If the current branch has a Graphite parent that is not develop:
git checkout <parent-branch>
git rebase origin/develop
Resolve any conflicts (see "If conflicts arise" below). Then push the parent:
git push --force-with-lease origin <parent-branch>
Then switch back:
git checkout <current-branch>
git rebase <parent-branch>
For deeper stacks (grandparent, etc.), work bottom-up: rebase each branch onto its freshly-rebased parent, push, then move up the stack.
4b. Rebase current branch (no parent, or after parent is done)
git rebase origin/develop
If conflicts arise
- List conflicted files with
git diff --name-only --diff-filter=U. - Search for conflict markers (
<<<<<<<,=======,>>>>>>>) in each conflicted file. - Read the conflict region with surrounding context, resolve the markers, and write the resolved content.
- Stage resolved files with
git add. - Continue the rebase:
GIT_EDITOR=true git rebase --continue
- Repeat until the rebase completes.
If conflicts are too complex to resolve automatically, abort and tell the user:
git rebase --abort
If untracked files block the rebase
Git will error with untracked working tree files would be overwritten by merge when a commit being replayed creates files that already exist as untracked on disk.
- Move the listed files to a temp directory:
mkdir -p /tmp/rebase-untracked
mv <file1> <file2> ... /tmp/rebase-untracked/
- Continue the rebase with
git rebase --continue. - After the rebase completes, restore the files:
mv /tmp/rebase-untracked/* <original-locations>
rmdir /tmp/rebase-untracked
5. Restore stashed changes
Only if changes were stashed in step 3:
git stash pop
If the pop produces merge conflicts, resolve them the same way as step 4.
6. Push
git push --force-with-lease origin <branch>
Replace <branch> with the branch name from step 1.
If the pre-push lint hook fails on pre-existing issues (not introduced by the rebase), use --no-verify:
git push --no-verify --force-with-lease origin <branch>
Only use --no-verify when the lint errors clearly predate the rebase. If the rebase introduced new issues, fix them first.
7. Verify
Confirm the rebase landed correctly:
git merge-base --is-ancestor origin/develop <branch> && echo "includes latest develop"
For stacked branches, also verify the parent relationship:
git merge-base --is-ancestor <parent-branch> <current-branch> && echo "current is on top of parent"
Summary
After completion, report:
- Whether the rebase was clean or conflicts were resolved.
- Whether stashed changes were restored.
- The push result for each branch.
- For stacks: the parent-child relationship is intact.