Ask HN: Git Rebase and Merge or Squash and Merge?

7•floriangosse•9mo ago

I'd like to know what's your preferred way of merging branches and PRs/MRs.

Comments

kcrwfrd_•9mo ago

I prefer to update my branch with rebase, and merge it with a squashed merge.

jeremy_k•9mo ago

A problem I just ran into with this is that squash and merge obviously loses all the history of the merged branch. If you branched off that branch, when attempting to rebase main, there are a lot of conflicts because all that history is gone. A co-worker suggested cherry-picking commits from the second branch off a clean main as an approach to not dealing with all the conflicts.

Example: main -> Branch A -> Lots of commits on A -> Branch B -> Lots of commits on B

Now we squash and merge A into main. B now has all of A's commit history, plus some of its own, instead of just it's own. Rebasing main in causes a lot of conflicts.

lostdog•9mo ago

IMO the best is to merge main into your branch. Then squash the result into a single change and rebase onto main. This way you can merge in a "normal" way, removing the conflicts with main, but then your own change goes in cleanly on top of main.

It takes some git gymnastics to transplant the merge back onto main cleanly.

kcrwfrd_•9mo ago

In this scenario I prefer to do an interactive rebase (with -i flag) and drop all of the commits that were on branch A.

This is basically exactly the same as checking out a fresh branch from main and cherry picking the commits from branch B.

ecesena•9mo ago

Squash. PR is a github thing, not a git thing (and it’s good imo). In a PR you have description, history, and you accumulate commits as you get review(s). When a PR is ready, all you need is a single commit to main, because the PR itself has the rest of the historic documentation.

skydhash•9mo ago

This. PR is just one of many methodologies with Git and has its own pros and cons. But as you said, the history is no longer so important as you have the PR reference (and can export the data). So squash it is.

But for true decentralized developments, when the developer is not really part of the same organigram, I'd prefer the remote branch to be cleaned up with clear commits. in this case, I will merge.

Ask HN: Anyone Using a Mac Studio for Local AI/LLM?

Ask HN: Ideas for small ways to make the world a better place

Ask HN: Non AI-obsessed tech forums

Ask HN: Non-profit, volunteers run org needs CRM. Is Odoo Community a good sol.?

Ask HN: 10 months since the Llama-4 release: what happened to Meta AI?

AI Regex Scientist: A self-improving regex solver

Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (February 2026)

Ask HN: Who is hiring? (February 2026)

Tell HN: Another round of Zendesk email spam

Ask HN: Is Connecting via SSH Risky?

Ask HN: Has your whole engineering team gone big into AI coding? How's it going?

Ask HN: Why LLM providers sell access instead of consulting services?

Ask HN: What is the most complicated Algorithm you came up with yourself?

Ask HN: Any International Job Boards for International Workers?

Ask HN: How does ChatGPT decide which websites to recommend?

Ask HN: Is it just me or are most businesses insane?

Ask HN: Mem0 stores memories, but doesn't learn user patterns

Ask HN: Is there anyone here who still uses slide rules?

Kernighan on Programming

Ask HN: Anyone Seeing YT ads related to chats on ChatGPT?

Ask HN: Does global decoupling from the USA signal comeback of the desktop app?

We built a serverless GPU inference platform with predictable latency

Ask HN: How Did You Validate?

Ask HN: Does a good "read it later" app exist?

Ask HN: Have you been fired because of AI?

Ask HN: Cheap laptop for Linux without GUI (for writing)

Ask HN: Anyone have a "sovereign" solution for phone calls?

Test management tools for automation heavy teams

Ask HN: OpenClaw users, what is your token spend?

Ask HN: Has anybody moved their local community off of Facebook groups?