git-stack VS graphite-cli

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 is exactly the problem that graphite-cli solves (https://github.com/screenplaydev/graphite-cli)

It keeps track of branchs and their parents by storing a tiny bit of metadata in the native git refs. It uses that information to perform recursive rebases: https://github.com/screenplaydev/graphite-cli/blob/main/src/...

It ends up working seamlessly - you just modify some branch, and then run `gt stack fix` to recursively rebase everything. (and then `gt stack submit` to sync everything to github :)

docs here: https://docs.graphite.dev/guides/graphite-cli

You can read Graphite's full implementation of metadata handing here.

We (Screenplay, https://screenplay.dev) built an internal tool (Graphite) to enable stacked diffs on GitHub for an individual (i.e. you can adopt it without your team also having to adopt it). It's inspired by some of the internal tooling we had at bigger companies. Specifically, the tool has two parts:

  * The CLI - https://github.com/screenplaydev/graphite-cli: Allows you to create diffs, restack them, submit them to GitHub, etc. It runs locally and stores all the metadata in your .git folder.