Rebase - a Cleaner History

git rebase

Rebase replays your commits on top of another branch, producing a straight, linear history instead of a merge commit.

Before:   A─B─C  (main)
               \
                D─E  (feature)

After rebase onto main:   A─B─C─D'─E'  (feature)  ← linear, no merge commit

$ git switch feature
$ git rebase main

Merge	Rebase
Preserves exact history + merge commit	Rewrites commits for a clean line
Safe on shared branches	Only for local/unpushed commits

Danger: The golden rule of rebase: never rebase commits you've already pushed and shared. Rebasing rewrites commit IDs; if others based work on the originals, you've split history. Rebase local work; merge shared work.

Tip: Interactive rebase (git rebase -i HEAD~3) lets you squash, reorder, reword, or drop recent commits - great for tidying a messy branch before opening a PR.