Quicker Commit Fixes With The Fixup Flag

Imagine you're working a feature branch and realize that the first commit you made had a typo. You could just tack on another commit to fix the typo, but that will add noise to your commit history. You can fix it up by making a fixup commit.

1. Make your typo fix

2. Stage the fix

3. Find the SHA of the commit that you want to fix (e.g. 2ee53ad)

4. Create a fixup commit: git commit --fixup 2ee53ad

This fixup commit is tied to the original commit it is fixing.

❯ git log --pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit
b4258b6 (HEAD -> feature-branch) fixup! Add header
9c0d2b0 Different atomic change
2ee53ad Add header
8486b91 (master) Initial commit

To then apply the fixup, run git rebase -i --autosquash master. This will present you with the following interactive rebase screen:

pick 2ee53ad Add header
fixup b4258b6 fixup! Add header
pick 9c0d2b0 Different atomic change

# Rebase 8486b91..b4258b6 onto 8486b91 (3 commands)

Because git knows that your fixup commit is tied to 2ee53ad, it automatically moves it into place below that commit with the fixup command.

Saving will apply and autosquash the fixup commit leaving you with a clean commit history.