git-history(1) Git Manual git-history(1)
NAME
git-history - EXPERIMENTAL: Rewrite history
SYNOPSIS
git history drop <commit> [--dry-run] [--update-refs=(branches|head)] [--empty=(drop|keep|abort)]
git history fixup <commit> [--dry-run] [--update-refs=(branches|head)] [--reedit-message] [--empty=(drop|keep|abort)]
git history reword <commit> [--dry-run] [--update-refs=(branches|head)]
git history split <commit> [--dry-run] [--update-refs=(branches|head)] [--] [<pathspec>...]
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 git-rebase(1) in that both commands can be
used to rewrite history. There are a couple of major differences though:
git-history(1) can work in a bare repository as
they do not need to touch either the index or the worktree. The fixup
subcommand is an exception to this, as it reads staged changes from
the index.
git-history(1) does not execute any githooks(5) at the current point
in time. This may change in the future.
git-history(1) by default updates all branches that are descendants
of the original commit to point to the rewritten commit.
Overall, git-history(1) aims to provide a more opinionated way to modify
your commit history that is simpler to use compared to git-rebase(1) in
general.
Use 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 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.
When using fixup with --empty=drop, dropping the root commit is not yet
supported. Likewise, drop cannot remove the root commit or a merge
commit.
COMMANDS
The following commands are available to rewrite history in different
ways:
drop <commit>
Remove the specified commit from the history. All descendants of the
commit are replayed directly onto its parent.
The root commit cannot be dropped as that may lead to edge cases
where refs end up with no commits anymore. Merge commits cannot be
dropped either; see LIMITATIONS.
If HEAD points at a commit that is to be rewritten, the index and
working tree are updated to match the new HEAD. The command aborts
before any references are updated in case local modifications would
be overwritten.
If replaying any descendant would result in a conflict, the command
aborts with an error.
fixup <commit>
Apply the currently staged changes to the specified commit. This is
similar in nature to git commit --fixup=<commit> followed by git
rebase --autosquash <commit>~. Changes are applied to the target
commit by performing a three-way merge between the HEAD commit, the
target commit and the tree generated from staged changes.
The commit message and authorship of the target commit are preserved
by default, unless you specify --reedit-message.
If applying the staged changes would result in a conflict, the
command aborts with an error. All branches that are descendants of
the original commit are updated to point to the rewritten history.
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.
split <commit> [--] [<pathspec>...]
Interactively split up <commit> into two commits by choosing hunks
introduced by it that will be moved into the new split-out commit.
These hunks will then be written into a new commit that becomes the
parent of the previous commit. The original commit stays intact,
except that its parent will be the newly split-out commit.
The commit messages of the split-up commits will be asked for by
launching the configured editor. Authorship of the commit will be the
same as for the original commit.
If passed, <pathspec> can be used to limit which changes shall be
split out of the original commit. Files not matching any of the
pathspecs will remain part of the original commit. For more details,
see the pathspec entry in gitglossary(7).
It is invalid to select either all or no hunks, as that would lead to
one of the commits becoming empty.
OPTIONS
--dry-run
Do not update any references, but instead print any ref updates in a
format that can be consumed by git-update-ref(1). Necessary new
objects will be written into the repository, so applying these
printed ref updates is generally safe.
--reedit-message
Open an editor to modify the target commit's message.
--empty=(drop|keep|abort)
Control what happens when a commit becomes empty as a result of the
fixup. This can happen in two situations:
o The fixup target itself becomes empty because the staged changes
exactly cancel out all changes introduced by that commit.
o A descendant commit becomes empty during replay because it
introduced the same change that was just fixed up into an
ancestor.
With drop (the default), empty commits are removed from the rewritten
history. Descendants of a dropped target commit are replayed directly
onto the target's parent. Note that dropping the root commit is not
supported; see LIMITATIONS.
With keep, empty commits are retained in the rewritten history as-is.
With abort, the command stops with an error if any commit would
become empty.
--update-refs=(branches|head)
Control which references will be updated by the command, if any. With
branches, all local branches that point to commits which are
descendants of the original commit will be rewritten. With head, only
the current HEAD reference will be rewritten. Defaults to branches.
EXAMPLES
Fixup a commit
$ git log --oneline --stat
abc1234 (HEAD -> main) third
third.txt | 1 +
def5678 second
second.txt | 1 +
ghi9012 first
first.txt | 1 +
$ echo "change" >>unrelated.txt
$ git add unrelated.txt
$ git history fixup ghi9012
$ git log --oneline --stat
jkl3456 (HEAD -> main) third
third.txt | 1 +
mno7890 second
second.txt | 1 +
pqr1234 first
first.txt | 1 +
unrelated.txt | 1 +
The staged addition of unrelated.txt has been incorporated into the first
commit. All descendant commits have been replayed on top of the rewritten
history.
Drop a commit
$ git log --oneline
abc1234 (HEAD -> main) third
def5678 second
ghi9012 first
$ git history drop 'main^{/second}'
$ git log --oneline
jkl3456 (HEAD -> main) third
ghi9012 first
The second commit has been removed from the history, and third has been
replayed directly on top of first. All branches that pointed at the
dropped commit have been moved to its parent.
Split a commit
$ git log --stat --oneline
3f81232 (HEAD -> main) original
bar | 1 +
foo | 1 +
2 files changed, 2 insertions(+)
$ git history split HEAD
diff --git a/bar b/bar
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5716ca5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/bar
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+bar
(1/1) Stage addition [y,n,q,a,d,p,?]? y
diff --git a/foo b/foo
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..257cc56
--- /dev/null
+++ b/foo
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+foo
(1/1) Stage addition [y,n,q,a,d,p,?]? n
$ git log --stat --oneline
7cebe64 (HEAD -> main) original
foo | 1 +
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
d1582f3 split-out commit
bar | 1 +
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
Git 2.56.0 2026-09-27 git-history(1)
git 2.56.0 - Generated Thu Oct 1 16:05:09 CDT 2026