Git: Squash Commits

With git it’s possible to squash previous commits into one before sharing them with others.

Step 1

For example you want to squash your last 3 commits:

git rebase -i HEAD~3

On the other hand, if you want to just simply squash all the unpushed commits:

git rebase -i origin/master

If you have many commits and want to start from a certain commit:

git rebase -i

Any of the command above will prompt open your editor with something like:

pick a92f09 Added new feature X
pick ca9f90a Some other stuff I did
pick d18a6h1 More stuff I did

This will show up in your editor:

pick a92f09 Added new feature X
squash ca9f90a Some other stuff I did
squash d18a6h1 More stuff I did

Note: If you don’t have an editor defined in your config, you will encounter Could not execute editor. Just do git config --global core.editor /usr/bin/vim for you to be able to proceed.

Step 2

Next, we can configure git on what to do with the commits. Let’s say, I want to keep commit a92f09. Git squash-ing the following two commits into the first one will leave us with one single commit with all the commits in it. To do that, change your file to this:

pick a92f09 Added new feature X
squash ca9f90a Some other stuff I did
squash d18a6h1 More stuff I did

Save and exit.

That’s it. Git squash is especially useful if you want to wrap up “all in a day’s work” or if you want to have a clean and concise git history.

TL;DR

Use git rebase -i origin/master and replace “pick” on the second and succeeding commits with “squash”.

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