Interactive Rebase — Rewriting History Like a Pro

Interactive rebase (git rebase -i) is one of Git's most powerful tools. It lets you edit, reorder, squash, and drop commits before sharing your work.

Why Interactive Rebase?

Before pushing your branch, you might want to:

• Squash several small "WIP" commits into one clean commit
• Reword a commit message with a typo
• Reorder commits for a more logical history
• Drop a commit you no longer need

How It Works

git rebase -i HEAD~3

This opens an editor with your last 3 commits (oldest first):

pick a1b2c3d Add user model
pick e4f5g6h Fix typo in user model
pick i7j8k9l Add user validation

You change the action word on each line:

Common Patterns

Squashing WIP Commits

Before:

pick a1b2c3d Add login page
pick e4f5g6h WIP: fix styling
pick i7j8k9l WIP: more styling fixes

After editing:

pick a1b2c3d Add login page
fixup e4f5g6h WIP: fix styling
fixup i7j8k9l WIP: more styling fixes

Result: One clean "Add login page" commit with all the styling fixes included.

Reordering Commits

Before:

pick a1b2c3d Add tests
pick e4f5g6h Add feature
pick i7j8k9l Fix feature bug

After editing:

pick e4f5g6h Add feature
pick i7j8k9l Fix feature bug
pick a1b2c3d Add tests

The Golden Rule

Just like regular rebase: never interactive-rebase commits that have been pushed to a shared branch. It rewrites history and will cause problems for collaborators.

Try it!

In this exercise, we'll simulate the effect of interactive rebase by using amend and reset:

1. Create three commits:

   • echo "feature" > feature.txt && git add feature.txt && git commit -m "Add feature"
   • echo "feature v2" > feature.txt && git add feature.txt && git commit -m "WIP fix"
   • echo "feature v3" > feature.txt && git add feature.txt && git commit -m "WIP fix 2"

2. Now squash the last two into the first using reset:

   • git reset --soft HEAD~2
   • git commit --amend -m "Add feature (complete)"

3. Verify: git log --oneline — you should see one clean commit

When to Use Interactive Rebase

• Before opening a PR — clean up your branch's commit history
• After code review — squash fixup commits
• When commits are out of logical order — reorder them

Key Points

• git rebase -i lets you edit multiple commits at once
• Use squash/fixup to combine commits
• Use reword to fix messages
• Use drop to remove commits
• Always do this before pushing to shared branches