git rebase -i lets you garden your commits

I use it like this: 1. make commits chaotically, git commit -am 'wip' 2. clean up with git rebase -i before sending them off for code review

interactive rebase’s UI is a text file

when you run git rebase -i main, it’ll open a text editor with something like this in it:

pick 399990 add some padding
pick fb59d8 french translation
pick 617b19 sort titles
pick 31b81f hashchange

deleting commits

You can delete a commit just by deleting that line in the text editor!

(same as previous panel but the “french translation” line is scribbled out)

combine commits with fixup

Here’s how to combine all 4 commits into 1 commit: (f stands for fixup)

pick 399990 add some padding
f fb59d8 french translation
f 617b19 sort titles
f 31b81f hashchange

check that the tests pass with exec

You can run make test on every intermediate commit to make sure your tests pass like this:

git rebase -i --exec 
"make test" main

(you can also use this to format every commit’s code!)

some other tips

• reword lets you edit a commit message
• If something goes very wrong, I try to run git rebase --abort ASAP, because undoing rebases is annoying