git-stack VS ghstack

git-stack is the most complicated, rewriting history, detecting when a branch was squashed, etc

I used to use aliases but got frustrated with them when dealing with PRs depending on PRs, so I wrote git-stack [0]. Thought I'd share in case you'd find it useful

[0] https://github.com/epage/git-stack/blob/main/docs/reference....

For anyone interested, I've been collecting notes on various tools in this space: https://github.com/epage/git-stack/blob/main/docs/comparison... (granted the page doesn't mention git-stack since that is assumed)

Personally, I rebase my PR branches on top of each other, rather than merge. It creates a cleaner history (if your merge policy allows maintaining branch history). Tired of managing these branches, I wrote a tool to help though there are other tools in this space, like git-branchless and graphite.

git-move and git-branchless do some great stuff, I wish this wasn't focused on the performance side to distract from the real value.

What I find useful is not the performance but this line

> For example, it can move entire subtrees, not just branches

The referenced docs mention other great quality of life improvements that streamline standard workflows (e.g. deleting local PR branches when merged into upstream)

When performance does matter is when the rebase operation is a small part of a larger operation. In my related tool, git-stack [0], I rebase all branches on top of their latest upstream branches along with re-arranging and squashing fixup commits and soon other features. When automating entire workflows, having each part be fast is important for the whole to still have decent performance.

[0] https://github.com/epage/git-stack

audit for security audits - Separate from regular CI since it only matters for specific changes or when new critical issues come out.

You might be interested in git-stack that I've previously announced

Could you comment on https://github.com/epage/git-stack/issues/25 for why it helps to iterate to find the last non-conflicting commit to rebase onto?

git-stack is the result of me being tired of annoyances in the PR workflow and trying to improve it, like

Fixing branches off of branches when applying a fixup commit (not implemented yet)

This fact can make you lose some time synching the depending branches manually with ‘merge’ or ‘rebase’, this is why some tools where born such as git-town, ghstack or graphite.

It seems like this is an idea that is really sticky.

[0] https://github.com/ezyang/ghstack

And there are various tools to help make this workflow easier to manage. Graphite and ghstack, to name just two examples.

How is this different from ghstack? https://github.com/ezyang/ghstack (which is what Edward Yang for PyTorch developers to mimic the stacked workflow, although it works with other repos).

While working on PyTorch, I also wrote an equivalent tool (funnily named nearly the same thing) for doing stack diffs (https://github.com/ezyang/ghstack/), which most of our team uses for more complicated PRs. The UX for working on commits is a bit different than this tool though; instead of pushing branches individually, you just run "ghstack" on a stack of commits and it will create a PR per commit in the chain (amending each commit so that its commit message records what PR it corresponds to). To update the PRs, just amend or interactive rebase the original commits. Personally, I find this a lot easier to handle than finagling tons of branches.