Git-hex Branch Cleanup

When to use this Skill

This skill should be used when:

• The user says they want to "clean up", "rewrite", "polish", or "squash" a git history or feature branch.
• The user wants to rebase a branch onto another branch (e.g. main) and present a clean, reviewable set of commits.
• The user wants to split, squash, or reword commits using git-hex tools instead of manual interactive rebase.

Trigger phrases include: "clean up my commits", "squash fixups", "polish history", "rewrite commits", "rebase onto main", "make this branch reviewable".

Workflow

1. Plan first

   • Call git-hex-getRebasePlan to inspect the commit range you would modify.
   • Optionally call git-hex-checkRebaseConflicts to estimate whether the rebase is likely to conflict.

2. Prepare changes

   • For small edits to the last commit, prefer git-hex-amendLastCommit.
   • For fixes to older commits, guide the user to edit and stage changes, then use git-hex-createFixup targeting the original commit.
   • For large or mixed commits, consider git-hex-splitCommit to separate files into focused commits.

3. Apply the rewrite

   • Use git-hex-rebaseWithPlan to reorder, drop, squash, or reword commits.
   • Prefer autoStash: true and autosquash: true when the working tree is dirty, following git-hex documentation.
   • Never use git-hex on shared or protected branches; operate on feature branches the user controls.

4. Safety and recovery

   • If the result is not what the user wanted, call git-hex-undoLast to restore the previous state using git-hex backup refs.
   • If a rebase pauses with conflicts, hand off to the conflict resolution Skill.

Tools to prefer

• Planning: git-hex-getRebasePlan, git-hex-checkRebaseConflicts
• History rewrite: git-hex-rebaseWithPlan, git-hex-createFixup, git-hex-amendLastCommit, git-hex-splitCommit, git-hex-cherryPickSingle
• Recovery: git-hex-undoLast

Key constraints

• reword action requires message field (without it, git opens an editor → hang).
• Messages must be single-line (no TAB/newline characters).
• For reordering commits, set requireComplete: true in the plan.
• Prefer fixup over squash unless you need to combine commit messages.
• Tools that perform their own auto-stash (amendLastCommit, splitCommit, cherryPickSingle) expose stashNotRestored when stash pop failed; rebaseWithPlan uses Git's native --autostash and does not emit this flag.