Git Interactive Rebase

Git Interactive Rebase

Trigger: Use when cleaning up commit history before merging, squashing fixup commits, or reordering changes.

Core Command

git rebase -i HEAD~N    # Rebase last N commits
git rebase -i <commit>  # Rebase all commits after <commit> (exclusive)

Interactive Rebase Actions

Common Workflows

1. Squash WIP Commits Before PR

# Before: a1b2c3 WIP, d4e5f6 fix typo, g7h8i9 Oops
# Want: one clean commit
git rebase -i HEAD~3
# Change to:
#   pick g7h8i9
#   squash d4e5f6
#   squash a1b2c3
# After: one squashed commit

2. Edit a Specific Old Commit

git rebase -i HEAD~10
# Change 'pick' to 'edit' on the target commit
# Git stops at that commit — make your changes:
git add -A
git commit --amend --no-edit
git rebase --continue

3. Reorder Commits Logically

git rebase -i HEAD~5
# Reorder lines in the editor — oldest at top, newest at bottom
# Move lines up/down to reorder commits

4. Split a Commit Into Multiple

git rebase -i HEAD~N
# Mark the commit to split as 'edit'
# When stopped:
git reset HEAD^                          # Unstage everything
git add file1.py && git commit -m "feat: part one"
git add file2.py && git commit -m "feat: part two"
git rebase --continue

5. Fixup (Squash Without Editing Message)

git commit --fixup=<target-sha>          # Creates "fixup! original message" commit
git rebase -i --autosquash HEAD~N        # Auto-arranges fixup commits

Safety

# Always create a backup branch first
git branch backup/rebase-YYYY-MM-DD

# Or use the reflog to recover
git rebase --abort                       # Cancel the rebase entirely
git reflog                               # Find pre-rebase state
git reset --hard HEAD@{N}               # Restore to before rebase

Pitfalls

• Never rebase pushed commits others depend on — force-push only your own branches
• Squashing loses individual commit metadata — good for cleanup, bad for attribution
• Long rebases generate many conflicts — prefer git merge --squash for large squashes
• Autosquash needs exact matching — --fixup creates fixup! prefix, --squash creates squash!

Verification

git log --oneline -5                     # Check resulting history
git diff main...HEAD                     # Verify net diff is unchanged after squash