Safe Rebase

Safe Rebase

Workflow

• Confirm the target branch and base to rebase onto (e.g., feature/foo onto origin/main).
• Ensure a clean working tree; commit or stash any local changes.
• Fetch latest refs from remotes.
• Verify the branch and upstream (avoid rebasing the wrong branch).
• Create a backup reference before rebasing.
• Rebase (standard or --rebase-merges depending on merge commits).
• Resolve conflicts and continue or abort.
• Run the project’s relevant tests or checks.
• Push safely with --force-with-lease if the branch exists on a remote.

Preflight Checks

• Run git status -sb and confirm the current branch.
• Run git fetch --all --prune before rebasing onto remote bases.
• Identify merge commits (if any) to decide on --rebase-merges.

Backup Before Rebase

• Create a backup branch at current HEAD:
  • git branch backup/<branch>-<timestamp>
• Optionally add a backup tag for extra safety:
  • git tag backup/<branch>-<timestamp>
• Use a timestamp like YYYYMMDD-HHMM to keep backups unique.

Rebase Execution

• Standard rebase:
  • git rebase <base>
• Preserve merge commits if needed:
  • git rebase --rebase-merges <base>
• Use interactive rebase only when history edits are required:
  • git rebase -i <base>

Conflict Handling

• Use git status to see conflicted files.
• Edit, then git add <files> and git rebase --continue.
• If needed, abort safely:
  • git rebase --abort
• If stuck mid-rebase, check current patch:
  • git rebase --show-current-patch

Push Safety

• If the branch is on a remote, force-push only with lease:
  • git push --force-with-lease
• If the branch is shared, confirm with the user before rewriting history.

Recovery

• To restore the pre-rebase state:
  • git switch <branch>
  • git reset --hard backup/<branch>-<timestamp>
  • git push --force-with-lease (only if the remote was updated)
• If backups are missing, use reflog to find the previous HEAD.

Notes

• Prefer rebasing onto origin/main (or the authoritative remote base) rather than a possibly stale local branch.
• Keep backup refs until the rebase is validated and merged.