🎬🔁 Git RERERE: escape CHAINED PR INCEPTION
🎬🔁 Git RERERE: escape CHAINED PR INCEPTION
20 chained PRs later… and the same conflicts return. 😵💫
🔸 TLDR
git rerere = reuse recorded resolution.
Git remembers how you solved a conflict and can reuse it when the same conflict pattern appears again.
Perfect when stacked PRs are repeatedly rebased.
1️⃣ WHAT IS RERERE?
conflict → manual resolution → remembered
same conflict → resolution reused
It does NOT commit for you: review, then stage the result.
2️⃣ USE CASE
Rerere shines when you repeatedly merge or rebase branches and keep seeing the same conflicts.
3️⃣ THE 20-PR INCEPTION 🌀
Peter Lawrey summed it up:
“When you have 20 chained PRs and go back and forth between them, the movie Inception keeps coming to mind.”
Now PR2 changes:
PR2' → rebase PR3 → PR4 → ... → PR20
As you restack downward, old conflicts can return.
Rerere lets Git say:
“I’ve seen this conflict before.”
and replay the previous resolution.
4️⃣ HOW TO
Enable it once:
git config --global rerere.enabled true
Resolve the first conflict normally and git add it. Git records the resolution.
When a matching conflict returns, rerere can apply it automatically.
5️⃣ COMMANDS
▪️ git rerere status→ tracked conflicts
▪️ git rerere diff→ current resolution diff
▪️ git rerere clear→ clear current rerere metadata
▪️ git rerere forget → forget a resolution for a path
💡NB: So clear forgets current branch conflicts and forget forgets for future conflicts on any branch.
🔸 TAKEAWAYS
▪️ Rerere remembers conflict resolutions.
▪️ Great for repeated rebases/restacks.
▪️ Especially useful with deep chained PRs.
▪️ It saves conflict work, not review work.
Sometimes the way out of PR Inception… is to let Git remember the previous dream. 🌀
#Git #Rerere #PullRequest #CodeReview #StackedPRs #DevOps
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