Git Interactive Rebase: Squashing, Rewording, Dropping & Reordering Commits

When developing a complex feature, your local commit history often looks messy: "wip", "fix typo", "tested again", "really fixed now". Submitting this to code review is unprofessional. Interactive Rebase (git rebase -i) lets you edit your commit history before anyone else sees it.

Launching Interactive Rebase

To launch interactive rebase, pass the -i flag along with how far back into history you want to go:

# Rebase the last 4 commits on your current branch:
$ git rebase -i HEAD~4

# Or rebase all commits on your branch since it diverged from main:
$ git rebase -i main

Git opens your text editor displaying a list of your commits, oldest at the top to newest at the bottom, accompanied by a command cheat sheet:

pick a1b2c3d feat(auth): add login form markup
pick 4e5f6g7 fix typo in input placeholder
pick 8h9i0j1 add password strength validator
pick 2k3l4m5 oops remove console.log

# Commands:
# p, pick = use commit
# r, reword = use commit, but edit the commit message
# e, edit = use commit, but stop for amending
# s, squash = meld into previous commit (discard commit, keep message)
# f, fixup = like "squash", but discard this commit's log message
# d, drop = remove commit entirely

The 4 Most Powerful Interactive Rebase Operations

1. Squashing Commits (squash and fixup)

To combine multiple small commits into a single comprehensive commit, change pick to squash (or s) or fixup (or f):

pick a1b2c3d feat(auth): add login form markup
f 4e5f6g7 fix typo in input placeholder
s 8h9i0j1 add password strength validator
f 2k3l4m5 oops remove console.log

Here, the typo fix and console.log cleanup will be silently absorbed into the first commit (fixup), while the validator's commit message will be combined with the first commit's message (squash).

2. Rewording a Commit Message (reword)

Change pick to reword (or r) next to any commit. Git will pause when it reaches that commit and prompt you to rewrite the title and body.

3. Dropping a Commit Entirely (drop)

Change pick to drop (or d), or simply delete the entire line from the file. Git will completely excise that commit from history!

4. Reordering Commits

Simply cut and paste the lines in the editor to change the chronological sequence in which commits are applied.