It moves your commits on top of another branch's latest commit.
- Keeps commit history clean & linear
- Avoids unnecessary merge commits
- Makes logs easier to read (git log)
Always run
git rebase <target-branch>while you are on the branch you want to move (shift).
Rebase happens if the current branch has commits that the target branch does not.
main: A --- B --- C
feature: A --- B --- C --- D --- E
git checkout feature
git rebase main
What Git does:
- Takes commits D, E
- Replays them on top of C
- Creates new commits D', E'
main: A --- B --- C
feature: D' --- E'
main: A --- B --- C --- F
feature: A --- B --- C --- D --- E
git checkout feature
git rebase main
What happens:
- Git finds D, E (unique to feature)
- Replays them on top of F
main: A --- B --- C --- F
feature: D' --- E'
- Resolve all conflicts manually, mark them as resolved with
- "git add/rm <conflicted_files>", then run "git rebase --continue".
- You can instead skip this commit: run "git rebase --skip".
- To abort and get back to the state before "git rebase", run "git rebase --abort".