I’m dealing with a forked repository where the original author made a mess in the first commit by adding all the project dependencies directly into a libs/ folder. This is really bothering me because it makes the repo much larger than it needs to be.
For regular commits, I would normally use interactive rebase to either edit or completely remove the problematic commit. But since this is the very first commit in the repository history, I’m not sure how to approach it.
Is there a way to modify the initial commit to remove just the libs folder while keeping all the other files intact? I want to clean up this repository but I don’t want to break the commit history or lose any important code changes.
You could also try git filter-branch or the newer git filter-repo tool to completely nuke the libs directory from your entire repo history. I had to do this when I accidentally committed large binary files from day one. Running git filter-branch --tree-filter 'rm -rf libs' --prune-empty HEAD goes through every commit and removes that folder. It’s way more aggressive than rebasing and rewrites your entire history. If you’re working with a fork and want the nuclear option, filter-branch works really well. Just make sure you’ve got backups - this is irreversible and changes every commit hash in your repo.
I’ve encountered similar issues while tidying up repositories. You can use git rebase --root to start from the very first commit. Begin with git rebase -i --root, and change the first commit from ‘pick’ to ‘edit’. This allows you to modify that initial commit. Remove the libs folder by executing git rm -r libs/, then use git commit --amend to update it. To complete the process, run git rebase --continue. Keep in mind that modifying the first commit will change the SHA of all subsequent commits, which means anyone who has cloned the repository will need to re-clone after you push the changes.