The best way to Flatten git Commits

One in every of my least favourite duties as a software program engineer is resolving merge conflicts. A easy rebase is a frequent prevalence however the uncommon large battle is inevitable when many engineers work in a single codebase. One factor that helps me take care of giant rebases with many merge conflicts is flattening a department’s commits earlier than fixing merge conflicts. Let’s take a look at find out how to flatten these commits earlier than resolving these conflicts!

My typical command for rebasing off of the principle department is:

# Whereas on the characteristic department...
git rebase -i grasp

To flatten commits earlier than the rebase, which might make resolving merge conflicts simpler, you possibly can barely modify the unique command:

# Whereas on the characteristic department...
# git rebase -i HEAD~[NUMBER_OF_COMMITS]
git rebase -i HEAD~10

The instance above would flatten the final 10 commits on the department. With only one single commit, you keep away from the stop-start nature of fixing merge conflicts with a number of commits!