I Got Lost in Git

In my current project, I got into a (very) minor issue with Git. This post will be like a short diary entry.

We are using a feature branch workflow with feature branches created from the develop branch. We also have a master branch that is used for production releases.

(feature branches) -> (squash commit) -> develop -> (squash commit) -> master

We were squashing commits when merging feature branches into the develop branch. No problem so far. It makes the commit history cleaner. But we were also squashing commits when merging the develop branch into the master branch. This is where the problem started.

When squashing commits, Git creates a new commit with a new commit hash. This is not a problem when merging feature branches into the develop branch because the feature branch is deleted after the merge. But when merging the develop branch into the master branch, the develop branch is not deleted. This means that the develop branch has a different commit history than the master branch.

Even though the code is the same, when trying to merge the develop branch into the master branch, Git sees the different commit histories and tries to merge all the commits from the develop branch into the master branch again.

Well, the solution we adopted was:

• stop squashing commits when merging the develop branch into the master branch and use merge commits instead

• reset the master branch to the develop branch state

(feature branches) -> (squash commit) -> develop -> (merge commit) -> master