rebase with marked commits

Rebase from Marked Base Commit §

Introduction §

Rebasing from a specific base commit is a powerful Git technique used when you need to change the base of your feature branch. For example, if your feature branch is based on develop, but you need it to be based on master, Lazygit provides a straightforward way to achieve this with the ability to mark a base commit and rebase onto a different branch.

Lazygit §

Here’s how to rebase from a marked base commit in Lazygit:

1. Identify and Mark the Base Commit:

   • Open Lazygit and navigate to the Commits panel of your feature branch.
   • Identify the last commit on the original base branch (e.g., develop).
   • Press Shift + B to mark that commit as your base commit. This commit acts as a boundary: only commits above it (more recent ones) will be included in the rebase.

2. Perform the Rebase:

   • Navigate to the Branches panel and select the branch you want to rebase onto (e.g., master).
   • Press r to start the rebase process. This will rebase your feature branch onto the selected branch, including only the commits after your marked base commit.

3. Push Changes:

   • After successfully rebasing, you can push your changes to the remote repository by pressing Shift + P.

4. Visual Demonstration:

   • For a visual guide on how this works, check out the demonstration gif from Lazygit: Rebase Onto Demo.

Rebasing onto Another Branch (v0.40+) §

In Lazygit release 0.40, rebase --onto support was introduced, enhancing the rebasing process:

• To select a base commit for rebasing, choose it in the commits panel and press Shift + B.
• The panel will visually change, showing arrows on the first commit not included in the rebase, clarifying which commits will be rebased.
• Proceed to rebase from the branches panel as usual.

Basic Terminal §

To perform a similar rebase in the terminal:

1. Start the rebase process:

   git rebase --onto <new-base> <old-base>

   Replace <new-base> with the branch you want to rebase onto (e.g., master) and <old-base> with the commit just before the first commit of your feature branch.

2. Resolve any conflicts that arise during the rebase.

3. Continue the rebase process:

   git rebase --continue

4. Force push your changes if the branch was previously pushed:

   git push --force-with-lease

Conclusion §

Rebasing from a marked base commit in Lazygit simplifies the process of changing the base of your feature branch, making it more intuitive and less error-prone. The terminal commands provide a more manual but equally effective way to achieve the same result. Be cautious with rebasing, especially when working with branches that are shared or already pushed to remote repositories.