Clean Commit History with Interactive Rebase

Advanced15 min

Squash, reorder, reword, and edit commits using interactive rebase to craft a clear, logical commit history before merging.

Prerequisites

-Git installed
-A feature branch with multiple commits
-Understanding of commit history and HEAD references

Steps

Review recent commit history

Visualize the last 15 commits with a graph to understand the current history and decide how many commits to rebase.

$ git log --oneline --graph -15

Use --author to filter commits if working on a shared branch.

Start interactive rebase

Opens your editor with the last 5 commits. Each line starts with 'pick'. Change the action word to squash, reword, edit, drop, or fixup.

$ git rebase -i HEAD~5

Never rebase commits that have already been pushed to a shared branch unless you coordinate with your team.

Squash fixup commits into their parent

Fixup merges a commit into the one above it and discards the fixup commit message. Squash does the same but lets you edit the combined message.

$ # In the editor, change 'pick' to 'fixup' for commits to squash silently # Or use 'squash' to combine and edit the commit message pick abc1234 feat: add user authentication fixup def5678 fix typo in auth module fixup ghi9012 add missing import

Use 'git commit --fixup=<hash>' while working to pre-mark commits for auto-squashing with 'git rebase -i --autosquash'.

Reorder commits for logical grouping

Move lines up or down to reorder commits. Git will replay them in the new order. Conflicts may arise if commits depend on each other.

$ # Simply rearrange lines in the editor: pick abc1234 feat: add user model pick jkl3456 feat: add user API routes pick mno7890 feat: add user UI components pick def5678 test: add user test suite

Resolve any conflicts during rebase

If Git encounters conflicts while replaying commits, fix them, stage the resolutions, and continue the rebase.

$ git status # Fix conflicts in listed files, then: git add . git rebase --continue

Use 'git rebase --abort' at any point to cancel and return to the original state.

Force push the cleaned branch

Push the rewritten history. The --force-with-lease flag prevents overwriting commits pushed by others since your last fetch.

$ git push --force-with-lease

Always use --force-with-lease instead of --force. It is a safety net against accidentally overwriting a collaborator's work.

Full Script

full-script.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# interactive-rebase-workflow.sh — Guided interactive rebase
set -euo pipefail

COMMIT_COUNT="${1:-5}"
BRANCH=$(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD)

echo "Current branch: $BRANCH"
echo ""
echo "=== Last $COMMIT_COUNT commits ==="
git log --oneline --graph -"$COMMIT_COUNT"

echo ""
echo "Rebase actions cheatsheet:"
echo "  pick   = keep commit as-is"
echo "  reword = keep commit, edit message"
echo "  squash = merge into previous, edit combined message"
echo "  fixup  = merge into previous, discard this message"
echo "  drop   = remove commit entirely"
echo "  edit   = pause after commit for amending"
echo ""
read -rp "Start interactive rebase for last $COMMIT_COUNT commits? (y/N) " confirm
if [[ "$confirm" =~ ^[Yy]$ ]]; then
  git rebase -i HEAD~"$COMMIT_COUNT"
  echo ""
  echo "Rebase complete. New history:"
  git log --oneline --graph -"$COMMIT_COUNT"
  echo ""
  read -rp "Push with --force-with-lease? (y/N) " push_confirm
  if [[ "$push_confirm" =~ ^[Yy]$ ]]; then
    git push --force-with-lease
    echo "Pushed successfully."
  fi
fi

FAQ

Discussion

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#!/usr/bin/env bash # interactive-rebase-workflow.sh — Guided interactive rebase set -euo pipefail COMMIT_COUNT="${1:-5}" BRANCH=$(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD) echo "Current branch: $BRANCH" echo "" echo "=== Last $COMMIT_COUNT commits ===" git log --oneline --graph -"$COMMIT_COUNT" echo "" echo "Rebase actions cheatsheet:" echo " pick = keep commit as-is" echo " reword = keep commit, edit message" echo " squash = merge into previous, edit combined message" echo " fixup = merge into previous, discard this message" echo " drop = remove commit entirely" echo " edit = pause after commit for amending" echo "" read -rp "Start interactive rebase for last $COMMIT_COUNT commits? (y/N) " confirm if [[ "$confirm" =~ ^[Yy]$ ]]; then git rebase -i HEAD~"$COMMIT_COUNT" echo "" echo "Rebase complete. New history:" git log --oneline --graph -"$COMMIT_COUNT" echo "" read -rp "Push with --force-with-lease? (y/N) " push_confirm if [[ "$push_confirm" =~ ^[Yy]$ ]]; then git push --force-with-lease echo "Pushed successfully." fi fi