Interactive Rebase Mastery

Interactive Rebase

Interactive rebase is one of Git's most powerful features for crafting a clean, logical commit history.

Basic Interactive Rebase

# Rebase last 5 commits
git rebase -i HEAD~5

# Rebase from a specific commit
git rebase -i abc123

# Rebase onto main
git rebase -i main

Rebase Commands

# In the editor, you'll see:
pick abc1234 First commit
pick def5678 Second commit
pick ghi9012 Third commit

# Available commands:
# p, pick   = use commit as-is
# r, reword = use commit, but edit message
# e, edit   = use commit, but stop for amending
# s, squash = meld into previous commit
# f, fixup  = like squash, but discard message
# x, exec   = run shell command
# b, break  = stop here (continue with 'git rebase --continue')
# d, drop   = remove commit
# l, label  = label current HEAD
# t, reset  = reset HEAD to a label

Squashing Commits

# Start interactive rebase
git rebase -i HEAD~4

# In editor, change:
pick abc1234 Add feature
pick def5678 Fix typo
pick ghi9012 More fixes
pick jkl3456 Final polish

# To:
pick abc1234 Add feature
squash def5678 Fix typo
squash ghi9012 More fixes
squash jkl3456 Final polish

# Then edit the combined commit message

Reordering Commits

# Simply reorder lines in the editor
git rebase -i HEAD~4

# Change from:
pick abc1234 Add CSS
pick def5678 Add HTML
pick ghi9012 Add JavaScript

# To (reorder):
pick def5678 Add HTML
pick abc1234 Add CSS
pick ghi9012 Add JavaScript

Editing a Commit

# Mark commit for editing
git rebase -i HEAD~3

# Change 'pick' to 'edit':
edit abc1234 Commit to modify
pick def5678 Next commit

# Git stops at that commit
# Make changes...
git add .
git commit --amend

# Continue rebase
git rebase --continue

Splitting a Commit

# Mark commit for editing
git rebase -i HEAD~2

# Change to 'edit'
edit abc1234 Big commit to split

# Reset to before the commit
git reset HEAD^

# Create multiple commits
git add file1.js
git commit -m "Add file1"

git add file2.js
git commit -m "Add file2"

git rebase --continue

Autosquash

# Create fixup commits
git commit --fixup=abc1234
git commit --squash=def5678

# Rebase with autosquash
git rebase -i --autosquash HEAD~5

# Or enable globally
git config --global rebase.autosquash true

Using exec

# Run tests after each commit
git rebase -i HEAD~5

# Add exec commands:
pick abc1234 First commit
exec npm test
pick def5678 Second commit
exec npm test

# Or add exec after every pick
git rebase -i HEAD~5 --exec "npm test"

Handling Conflicts

# When conflicts occur
git status  # See conflicting files
# Edit files to resolve conflicts

git add resolved-file.js
git rebase --continue

# Or abort if needed
git rebase --abort

# Skip problematic commit
git rebase --skip

Rebase Preserving Merges

# Preserve merge commits during rebase
git rebase -i --rebase-merges main

# In editor, you'll see labels:
label onto
reset onto
pick abc1234 Commit 1
label branch-a
reset onto
pick def5678 Commit 2
merge -C merge123 branch-a # Merge branch-a

Best Practices

# Never rebase shared/pushed commits!
# Only rebase local, unpushed work

# Create backup branch before complex rebase
git branch backup-branch

# Use reflog to recover if things go wrong
git reflog
git reset --hard HEAD@{2}

# Preview what will be rebased
git log --oneline main..HEAD

Rebase vs Merge

Rebase	Merge
Linear history	Preserves branch history
Cleaner log	Shows when branches merged
Rewrites history	Non-destructive
Use for local branches	Use for shared branches