Some git tasks work best with regular git merge and preserving commit
history.
But pull requests and main branches are much easier to understand with
simplified git histories resulting from commit squashing, re-basing and not
using regular git merge.
git-prepr ("prep request" or "pre-PR") makes it possible
to keep commit history, use git merge while also pushing simplified histories
in pull requests.
In a "prepr" workflow a topic branch maintains all commit history while
it's corresponding PR (pull request) branch has a simplified history.
Multiple topic branches can be developed using regular git merge. This
includes merging the main branch into topic branches and merging multiple topic
branches into each other.
Every PR branch is created and updated using the script git-prepr.
Here's the basic "prepr" workflow (main branch is main):
git checkout -b cool_feature main
...
git commit -m "cool new feature"
...
git commit -m "fix bug"
git prepr
... combine topic branch commit messages into single PR commit message ...
git push
Copy git-prepr into a directory that is in your PATH.
git-prepr creates and updates a branch called pr/mytopic
when you are in a clean checkout of a topic branch named mytopic.
The mytopic branch is "grafted" into the pr/mytopic branch. Grafting
is done via git replace --graft. This means pr/mytopic will have a simple
linear history when published. At the same time local merging can be done
intelligently with regular git merge between main and multiple topic
branches.
Useful git commands to use with git-prepr
Use --branches instead of --all when using git log to not see
replacement graft commits.
Do git --no-replace-objects log ... to see the log without any grafting of
topic branches into pr branches.
Do git replace --format=long to see all replaced commits pointing to their
replacement graft commits.
Do git replace -d pr/mytopic to permanently remove the graft of mytopic
into pr/mytopic.
Use git-isograft to re-graft a PR branch onto a topic
branch by doing git isograft mytopic pr/mytopic.