As a general rule, when merging a pull request from a feature branch with a messy commit history, you should squash your commits. There are exceptions, but in most cases, squashing results in a cleaner Git history that's easier for the team to read.

Why is squashing commits bad?

It breaks some of the most powerful features of git for learning, refactoring, and bugfixing. If we write good commit messages, squashing a branch erases that information, or if we're listing all commit messages in the squashed commit it disconnects those messages from the code they describe.

Why are squashing commits good?

Commit squashing has the benefit of keeping your git history tidy and easier to digest than the alternative created by merge commits. While merge commits retain commits like “oops missed a spot” and “maybe fix that test? [round 2]”, squashing retains the changes but omits the individual commits from history.

Should commits to master be squashed?

3 Answers. In my opinion, and bear in mind, this is just an opinion, and you will likely get different answers, you should NOT squash the commits when merging into master from the develop branch. Doing so would lose a lot of the history of the changes that have been made.

What happens when commits are squashed?

Squashing a commit means, from an idiomatic point of view, to move the changes introduced in said commit into its parent so that you end up with one commit instead of two (or more). If you repeat this process multiple times, you can reduce n commit to a single one.

Combining Git commits with squash

45 related questions found

How do I undo a rebase?

Undo a git rebase

1. Back up all your changes.
2. Use git reflog to see all your previous operations. git log will show rebased and squashed changes only.
3. Find out the commit where you want to go back to. Most probably this will be the commit before your rebase operation. ...
4. Now reset your local branch to this commit.

How do I remove a commit?

To remove the last commit from git, you can simply run git reset --hard HEAD^ If you are removing multiple commits from the top, you can run git reset --hard HEAD~2 to remove the last two commits. You can increase the number to remove even more commits.

Are merge commits bad?

The explicit merge commits are usually perfectly fine. You usually even enforce those kind of merge commits by saying git merge --no-ff .

Can I change commit message after push?

Changing the latest Git commit message

If the message to be changed is for the latest commit to the repository, then the following commands are to be executed: git commit --amend -m "New message" git push --force repository-name branch-name.

How do I squash my commits?

In case you are using the Tower Git client, using Interactive Rebase to squash some commits is very simple: just select the commits you want to combine, right-click any of them, and select the "Squash Revisions..." option from the contextual menu.

How many commits PR?

Have one commit per logical change and one major feature per pull request. When you submit a pull request, all the commits associated with that pull request should be related to the same major feature. For example, if you made the follow changes: Fixed bug #1234.

When should you not use a squash commit?

Squashing is bad if you expect to work on your project long term or if others may have the same commits as you from working on the same feature branch. One can branch and then merge features, and get easily revertible commits and a full history at the same time.

Can I squash a merge commit?

To enable commit squashing as the default option in your repository: Navigate to your chosen repository and open the Settings sub-tab. Open the General Settings page. Check the box for Squash commits on merge default enabled.

What is a squashed commit in Git?

Git Squash Commits

Squashing is a way to rewrite your commit history; this action helps to clean up and simplify your commit history before sharing your work with team members. Squashing a commit in Git means that you are taking the changes from one commit and adding them to the Parent Commit.

What is merge in bitbucket?

Merge in Git and Bitbucket

In Git, merging is like putting back together a forked history of commits. By using the git merge command, developers can integrate the independent lines of development into a single branch. Here's how git merge works: The command combines multiple commit sequences into one unified stream.

What does merge squash mean?

What is squash merge? A squash merge is a merge option in Git that will produce a merge commit with only one parent. The files are merged exactly as they would be in a normal merge, but the commit metadata is changed to show only one of the parent commits.

Can you rename a commit?

You can change the most recent commit message using the git commit --amend command. In Git, the text of the commit message is part of the commit. Changing the commit message will change the commit ID--i.e., the SHA1 checksum that names the commit. Effectively, you are creating a new commit that replaces the old one.

How do you push an amended commit?

To make it smooth follow the following steps. git commit --amend -m "BRANCH-NAME : your new message" git push -f origin BRANCH-NAME # Not a best practice.
...
Which does the following:

1. Reset branch head to parent commit.
2. Stash this last commit.
3. Force push to remote. ...
4. Pop your stash.
5. Commit cleanly.
6. Push to remote.

What is force with lease?

The "force with lease" option basically does an atomic compare-and-swap on the branch that you're pushing to, based on the last information you fetched. In other words, it ensures that you're force pushing to remove what you think that you're force pushing to remove.

Should you avoid merge commits?

7 Answers. People want to avoid merge commits because it makes the log prettier. Seriously. It looks like the centralized logs they grew up with, and locally they can do all their development in a single branch.

Why is rebasing bad?

If you do get conflicts during rebasing however, Git will pause on the conflicting commit, allowing you to fix the conflict before proceeding. Solving conflicts in the middle of rebasing a long chain of commits is often confusing, hard to get right, and another source of potential errors.

Do I need merge commits?

Always You should usually merge branches with git merge --no-ff to get a merge commit, and keep the “Conflicts” lines added by git. Only fast forward when pulling in remote changes to a branch with no local commits.

How do I undo a commit not pushed?

Undoing Your Last Commit (That Has Not Been Pushed)

1. In your terminal (Terminal, Git Bash, or Windows Command Prompt), navigate to the folder for your Git repo.
2. Run this command: git reset --soft HEAD~ ...
3. Your latest commit will now be undone.

How do I Unstage all files?

In order to unstage all files and directories, execute “git reset” and they will be removed from the staging area back to your working directory.

How remove last commit locally?

How to undo the previous local commit. Just reset your branch to the previous location (for example, using gitk or git rebase ). Then reapply your changes from a saved copy.