I have 7 years of development experience and recently noticed a coworker always using ‘git pull --rebase’ instead of regular git pull. This is new to me since nobody at my workplace has used this method before.
I’m wondering if this is actually a widespread practice that my organization just doesn’t follow? From what I understand, the main advantage seems to be keeping the commit history linear and neat.
I know our entire team should stick to one approach when we share branches. I want to form a better educated view on this topic.
Honestly, if the only advantage is making commit history look cleaner, I’m not convinced it’s worth changing our workflow. In my career, I’ve worked on massive projects with multiple teams, and I can’t remember ever needing to dig through commit logs to fix bugs or solve problems.
What are the real benefits of using ‘git pull --rebase’ that would make it worth adopting?
Rebasing is particularly beneficial when working with tools like git bisect, which requires a clean, linear history to function optimally. Merge commits can complicate the process, hindering reliability and speed. Moreover, a rebased history facilitates code reviews and releases, as each feature is presented as a clear sequence, simplifying cherry-picking for patches or fixes on other branches. I’ve seen teams struggle to locate original code amidst merge clutter when backporting fixes. However, it’s important to approach rebasing with care; mismanaging shared branches can lead to issues. If your current workflow suits you and you seldom need to modify commit history, the effort to adapt may not yield significant benefits.
The biggest win I’ve seen is conflict handling. Regular merge pulls create those nasty “merge commit” situations where conflicts get resolved in a separate commit that’s impossible to track later.
With rebase, conflicts get resolved directly in your feature commits. Someone asks “why’d you change this line?” six months later? The context is right there in your commit message, not buried in some random merge commit.
Switched my team to rebase pulls 3 years ago after a production bug took forever to trace. Merge history was such a mess we couldn’t figure out which PR caused it.
Here’s the thing though - if your team isn’t hitting these problems, don’t fix what works. The learning curve isn’t worth it unless messy history is actually causing you pain.
One warning: never rebase shared branches. Only rebase local commits before pushing. I’ve watched people accidentally rewrite shared history and screw everyone over.
I’ve used both at different companies, and it really comes down to how much you need to trace code changes. Rebase’s linear history is a lifesaver when you’re doing detective work on complex features or figuring out why someone made certain architecture choices. I was skeptical until I joined a team that’d been rebasing for years. We had to rollback a multi-sprint feature, and the clean history let us pinpoint exactly which commits belonged to it - no digging through merge noise. Same when we needed to understand how a performance fix evolved through code reviews. Plus our CI auto-generates release notes from commit messages, which only works with linear history. Merge commits just create clutter. If your current process works and isn’t causing headaches, the switching costs might not be worth it. But once teams get the hang of rebasing, most never go back.