Git 101 : Rebasing

Git Rebasing

Rebasing is the process of moving or combining a sequence of commits to a new base commit. It rewrites the project history by creating brand new commits for each commit in the original branch, resulting in a linear project history.

Use Cases:

Maintaining a clean, linear project history
Incorporating upstream changes into your feature branch
Cleaning up local commits before pushing to a shared repository
Squashing multiple commits into a single, coherent commit
Reordering or editing commit messages before merging

Examples:

1. Initialize repository:

git init

2. Create index.txt with:

My Website

git add .
git commit -m "Add title"

3. Add another commit to main. Edit index.txt to:

My Website
Welcome to my sit

git add .
git commit -m "Add welcome text"

4. Create feature branch:

git checkout -b feature-contact

5. Add commits to feature branch. Edit index.html to:

My Website
Welcome to my site
Contact Me

git add .
git commit -m "Add contact heading"

Edit index.txt to:

My Website
Welcome to my site
Contact Me
Email: me@example.com

git add .
git commit -m "Add email"

6. Go back to main and add more commits:

git checkout main

Edit index.txt to:

My Website
Welcome to my site
This site was built in 2026

git add .
git commit -m "Add footer"

7. Rebase feature branch onto main:

git checkout feature-contact
git rebase main

You'll get a conflict! Open index.txt and you'll see conflict markers with <<<<<<<, =======, and >>>>>>>

8. Fix the conflict by editing the file to keep both changes (remove conflict markers):

My Website
Welcome to my site
This site was built in 2026
Contact Me
Email: me@example.com

git add .
git rebase --continue

If there's another conflict, fix it the same way, then continue again. Done!

Commands for Rebasing:

Rebase current branch onto main:

git rebase main

Continue rebase after resolving conflicts:

git rebase --continue

Abort an in-progress rebase:

git rebase --abort

Skip current commit during rebase:

git rebase --skip