git-squash-branch

Script to squash commits in a Git branch or pull-request.

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Why?

To consolidate the commits in a branch to a single commit for a cleaner Git history.

Examples:

1. Squashing WIP commits in the default branch of a new repository. I personally do this often when starting a new project.

2. Squashing your PR's commits when squash merging is disabled on the repository you're contributing to.

3. Squashing your PR's commits when your PR is deployed through another PR (e.g. in a batched PRs, GitHub cannot squash individual PRs in the batch)

Usage

Squash current branch

Run the script with npx from the repository branch you want to squash:

npx git-squash-branch

Example: squashing new commits in current branch compared to base branch

# You must be inside the branch you want to squash
$ git checkout branch-to-squash

$ npx git-squash-branch --base develop --message "feat: my new feature"

Successfully squashed with message:
feat: my new feature

To revert back to the original commit:
git reset --hard 4f0432ffd1

# Force push the squashed branch to remote
$ git push --force

Example: squashing all commits in current branch

$ git checkout main

$ npx git-squash-branch --base main --message "feat: init"

Current branch is the same as base branch. Squashing all commits to root.
Successfully squashed with message:
feat: init

To revert back to the original commit:
git reset --hard 4f0432ffd1

# Force push the squashed branch to remote
$ git push --force

Squash PR

⚠️ Requires GitHub CLI to be installed

From inside the repository directory, pass in the PR number, URL, or branch:

npx git-squash-branch pr [<number> | <url> | <branch>]

It will squash the PR branch into a single commit and force push it back to the PR branch.

Example

# You must be inside the repository for gh to fetch the PR
$ cd my-repo

$ npx git-squash-branch pr 1234

✔ Successfully squashed PR 1234 with message:
feat: my PR title

To revert the PR back to the original commit:
git push -f origin 4f0432ffd1:pr-branch-name

Note: This command will not update the PR with the latest base branch.

Manual

Usage:
  git-squash-branch [flags...]
  git-squash-branch <command>

Commands:
  pr

Flags:
  -b, --base <string>
  Base branch to compare against. If not specified, will try to
  detect it from remote "origin".

  -h, --help
  Show help

  -m, --message <string>
  Message for the squash commit (defaults to last commit message)

  -r, --remote <string>
  Remote to fetch from (default: "origin")

  --version
  Show version

What does this script do?

Basically runs these commands, derived from this StackOverflow answer:

$ git reset --soft $(git merge-base <base-branch> $(git branch --show-current))
$ git commit -m <message>

On top of that, it adds extra features such as:

• Tries to automatically detect the base branch based on the origin remote
• Defaults to using the commit message from the last commit, if not provided
• Logs the current commit hash in case you want to revert the squash