Interactive Rebase & History Rewriting

Overview

Interactive rebase (git rebase -i) lets you rewrite commit history before sharing it. Squash WIP commits, reorder for logical flow, edit messages, and split oversized commits into focused units.

When to Use

• -Before creating a PR — clean up your local commits
• -After code review feedback — reorganize commits logically
• -To combine "fix typo" and "WIP" commits into meaningful units

When NOT to Use

• -On commits already pushed to shared branches (main, develop)
• -On public/open-source branches others have forked
• -If you're not comfortable with conflict resolution

Basic Usage

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

# Rebase all commits since branching from main
git rebase -i main

The Interactive Menu

pick abc1234 Add user model
pick def5678 WIP: working on auth
pick ghi9012 Fix typo in user model
pick jkl3456 Add authentication middleware
pick mno7890 Fix lint errors

Available Commands

Common Workflows

Squash WIP Commits

pick abc1234 Add user model
fixup ghi9012 Fix typo in user model
pick def5678 Add authentication middleware
fixup mno7890 Fix lint errors

Result: 2 clean commits instead of 5 messy ones.

Reorder Commits for Logical Flow

pick abc1234 Add user model
pick def5678 Add authentication middleware
pick ghi9012 Add API routes for users

Split a Large Commit

# Mark the commit as "edit"
# When rebase pauses:
git reset HEAD~1              # Undo the commit, keep changes
git add src/models/           # Stage first logical group
git commit -m "Add user and post models"
git add src/routes/           # Stage second logical group
git commit -m "Add API routes"
git rebase --continue

Safety Tips

• -Always create a backup branch before rebasing: git branch backup-before-rebase
• -If things go wrong: git rebase --abort returns to original state
• -Use git reflog to recover lost commits after a bad rebase
• -Never rebase commits that have been pushed to shared branches

Best Practices

• -Rebase BEFORE pushing, never after others have pulled
• -Aim for each commit to be independently buildable and testable
• -Use fixup (not squash) when the intermediate message has no value
• -Group related changes together in the final history