rebase-onto-main

Rebase Onto Main

Fetch and rebase the current feature branch onto the repository's base branch.

Options

The user may provide these options inline:

• --base <branch>: Override the auto-detected base branch (e.g., --base develop)

Workflow

1. Pre-Flight Checks

Run these commands in parallel to understand the current state:

# Check for uncommitted changes
git status

# Detect the repository's default branch
gh repo view --json defaultBranchRef -q '.defaultBranchRef.name'

# Confirm which branch we are on
git branch --show-current

# Check whether the branch has been pushed to a remote
git rev-parse --abbrev-ref --symbolic-full-name '@{u}' 2>/dev/null || echo "no upstream"

If --base <branch> was specified, use that value instead of the detected default branch.

If gh is not available, fall back to detecting the default branch with:

git remote show origin | grep 'HEAD branch' | sed 's/.*: //'

If the current branch is the default branch itself, warn the user that rebasing the base branch onto itself is a no-op and stop.

2. Handle Uncommitted Changes

If git status shows uncommitted changes (staged or unstaged):

1. Warn the user that there are uncommitted changes.
2. Ask whether to:
   • Stash: Run git stash before proceeding, then git stash pop after the rebase completes.
   • Commit first: Invoke the /commit skill, then continue with the rebase.
   • Abort: Stop without doing anything.

Rebase will refuse to start with a dirty working tree, so this step is mandatory before fetching.

3. Fetch and Rebase

Capture the current HEAD so the post-rebase step can detect whether history was actually rewritten:

git rev-parse HEAD

Record this as <pre-rebase-head>. Then:

git fetch origin <base-branch>
git rebase origin/<base-branch>

Where <base-branch> is the detected or overridden base branch name.

4. Handle Rebase Result

Clean Rebase

If the rebase completes without conflicts: