# git rebase

Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/git-rebase/

21 people recommended git rebase in Hacker News comments, 2 had mixed feelings and 11 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 12 months, in 15 threads. It does not meet the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Lets people edit, reorder and fix up local commits before merging, giving a cleaner history. Caveat: the editor-based workflow is cumbersome, and rewriting history can break things.

Summary written by Claude from 43 comments. It was written before the November 2026 recount, and 41 of those comments still count.

## Why people recommend it

- Tidies local commits before merging (6 comments in the sample): "Becoming very comfortable with "rebase --interactive" and other cmds for editing your (local!) history before merging helps a lot." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48762353)) "git rebase can do that easily, I do it all the time when prepping feature branches" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47024101)) "There are also features to automatically reorder commits with, e. g., `git commit --fixup` and `git rebase --autosquash" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46171319))
- Reorder and drop commits in an editor (3 comments in the sample): "A clear example of text as UI is git rebase: move around lines, rename words, press save and quit…" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46018155)) "Bring able to rapidly open history list in a text editor and rearrange and issue commands in vim is fantastic." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49105810)) "Eh I just use `git rebase -i` and delete the commits I don't want. Much easier to think about." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46162285))
- Keeps long-lived local branches tidy (2 comments in the sample): "I love rebase locally, especially when I have a few non-urgent branches that sit around for a little while." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46609893)) "with rebase you can work more or less as with "patches" and a single master" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46599081))
- Fixup and autosquash workflow (1 comment in the sample): "Though an interactive rebase with fixup is even better" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46263772))

## What people warn about

- Manual editor workflow is cumbersome (3 comments in the sample): "git rebase -i drops you into a text editor where you have to manually copy, move, and edit lines" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48175288)) "this new interface is very primitive, you see close to no context, only some commit names" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47628440)) "That's not "easily". Easily would be: you drag your commit(s) from one place to another" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47625220))
- Rewrites history into commits never existed (3 comments in the sample): "I hate it when people rebase a list of commits, because that makes commits which never existed before" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46599271)) "since rebase is fundamentally wrong it only stacks the wrongness" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46789643)) "interactive rebasing is a horrible solution to this problem" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49351197))
- Confusing and unpredictable behavior (3 comments in the sample): "git rebase appears to be a random number generator to me" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46602837)) "people are confused about rebase" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46604935)) "git rebase -i kinda sucks" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48261342))
- Easy to break the working tree (1 comment in the sample): "they kept learning its footguns faster than its capabilities" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48909720))

## Other version control features people recommend

- [Git worktree](https://hackerapproved.com/p/git-worktrees/): 46 recommend, 10 mixed, 19 criticize
- [git rerere](https://hackerapproved.com/p/git-rerere/): 16 recommend, 2 mixed, 4 criticize
- [git add -p](https://hackerapproved.com/p/git-add-p/): 11 recommend, 2 mixed, 4 criticize
- [Git notes](https://hackerapproved.com/p/git-notes/): 10 recommend, 1 mixed, 2 criticize

## The badge

A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged.

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "git rebase", https://hackerapproved.com/p/git-rebase/ (21 recommend, 2 mixed, 11 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026).

Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.