git/Documentation/git-history.adoc
Patrick Steinhardt e125df7961 builtin/history: implement "reword" subcommand
Implement a new "reword" subcommand for git-history(1). This subcommand
is similar to the user performing an interactive rebase with a single
commit changed to use the "reword" instruction.

The "reword" subcommand is built on top of the replay subsystem
instead of the sequencer. This leads to some major differences compared
to git-rebase(1):

  - We do not check out the commit that is to be reworded and instead
    perform the operation in-memory. This has the obvious benefit of
    being significantly faster compared to git-rebase(1), but even more
    importantly it allows the user to rewrite history even if there are
    local changes in the working tree or in the index.

  - We do not execute any hooks, even though we leave some room for
    changing this in the future.

  - By default, all local branches that contain the commit will be
    rewritten. This especially helps with workflows that use stacked
    branches.

Signed-off-by: Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2026-01-09 06:42:10 -08:00

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git-history(1)
==============
NAME
----
git-history - EXPERIMENTAL: Rewrite history
SYNOPSIS
--------
[synopsis]
git history reword <commit> [--ref-action=(branches|head|print)]
DESCRIPTION
-----------
Rewrite history by rearranging or modifying specific commits in the
history.
THIS COMMAND IS EXPERIMENTAL. THE BEHAVIOR MAY CHANGE.
This command is related to linkgit:git-rebase[1] in that both commands can be
used to rewrite history. There are a couple of major differences though:
* linkgit:git-history[1] can work in a bare repository as it does not need to
touch either the index or the worktree.
* linkgit:git-history[1] does not execute any linkgit:githooks[5] at the
current point in time. This may change in the future.
* linkgit:git-history[1] by default updates all branches that are descendants
of the original commit to point to the rewritten commit.
Overall, linkgit:git-history[1] aims to provide a more opinionated way to modify
your commit history that is simpler to use compared to linkgit:git-rebase[1] in
general.
Use linkgit:git-rebase[1] if you want to reapply a range of commits onto a
different base, or interactive rebases if you want to edit a range of commits
at once.
LIMITATIONS
-----------
This command does not (yet) work with histories that contain merges. You
should use linkgit:git-rebase[1] with the `--rebase-merges` flag instead.
Furthermore, the command does not support operations that can result in merge
conflicts. This limitation is by design as history rewrites are not intended to
be stateful operations. The limitation can be lifted once (if) Git learns about
first-class conflicts.
COMMANDS
--------
Several commands are available to rewrite history in different ways:
`reword <commit>`::
Rewrite the commit message of the specified commit. All the other
details of this commit remain unchanged. This command will spawn an
editor with the current message of that commit.
OPTIONS
-------
`--ref-action=(branches|head|print)`::
Control which references will be updated by the command, if any. With
`branches`, all local branches that point to commits which are
decendants of the original commit will be rewritten. With `head`, only
the current `HEAD` reference will be rewritten. With `print`, all
updates as they would be performed with `branches` are printed in a
format that can be consumed by linkgit:git-update-ref[1].
GIT
---
Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite