Rebase

Git · Reference cheat sheet

📖 Overview

git rebase replays commits onto a new base, rewriting history for a linear sequence. Use it to update a feature branch onto main, clean up before sharing, and avoid unnecessary merge commits. Do not rebase commits already shared unless the team agrees.

🧩 Core concepts

• Replay — take commits after the merge-base and apply onto the upstream tip.
• Interactive (-i) — reorder, squash, reword, drop, edit commits.
• Continue / abort / skip — resolve conflicts then rebase --continue.
• Onto — git rebase --onto for advanced history surgery.
• Autosquash — works with fixup! / squash! commit messages.
• Update refs — rewritten commits get new SHAs; remotes need force-with-lease.

💡 Examples

# Update feature branch onto latest main
git switch feature/checkout
git fetch origin
git rebase origin/main

# Interactive cleanup
git rebase -i origin/main
# pick / reword / squash / fixup / drop

# Continue after conflicts
git add .
git rebase --continue

git rebase --abort
git rebase --skip

# Rebase onto a different cut point
git rebase --onto main old-base feature/checkout

# Pull with rebase
git pull --rebase origin main

⚠️ Pitfalls

• Rebasing published history rewrites SHAs — collaborators must reset/rebase carefully.
• Never rebase main/master that others base work on without coordination.
• Long conflict chains: abort and merge instead if the cost is too high.
• Avoid interactive rebase in environments that cannot provide a real editor session.

🔗 Related

• Merge
• Pull
• Push
• Commit
• Branch