Git Interactive Rebase: Squash, Reword, and Reorder Commits

Interactive Rebase with git rebase -i

Interactive rebase is one of git's most powerful features for cleaning up commit history. It lets you squash, reword, reorder, edit, and drop commits before pushing or merging.

Starting an Interactive Rebase

# Rebase the last 4 commits
git rebase -i HEAD~4

# Rebase onto main
git rebase -i main

This opens your editor with a list of commits:

pick abc1234 feat: add login form
pick def5678 fix: typo in login
pick ghi9012 feat: add validation
pick jkl3456 fix: validation edge case

Rebase Commands

Replace pick with any of these:

Command	Short	Effect
pick	p	Keep the commit as-is
reword	r	Keep the commit but edit the message
edit	e	Pause to amend the commit
squash	s	Merge into the previous commit
fixup	f	Like squash but discard the message
drop	d	Remove the commit entirely

Squashing Commits

To combine the fix commits into the feature commits:

pick abc1234 feat: add login form
fixup def5678 fix: typo in login
pick ghi9012 feat: add validation
fixup jkl3456 fix: validation edge case

This produces two clean feature commits instead of four messy ones.

Reordering Commits

Simply change the order of lines in the editor:

pick ghi9012 feat: add validation
pick abc1234 feat: add login form

Editing a Commit

Using edit pauses the rebase at that commit:

# After the rebase pauses:
# Make your changes, then:
git add .
git commit --amend
git rebase --continue

Handling Conflicts

If conflicts arise during rebase:

# Resolve conflicts in your editor, then:
git add <resolved-files>
git rebase --continue

# Or abort the entire rebase:
git rebase --abort