Rebase After Parent Merged to Main

Rebase your branch onto main after the parent PR it was based on has been merged.

Usage

/rebase-merged-parent
/rebase-merged-parent feature/old-parent    # Specify the old parent branch

Instructions

1. Understand the Situation

Your branch was based on a parent branch (not main). That parent PR has now been merged to main. You need to:

• •Rebase onto main
• •Keep only YOUR commits (not the parent's commits, which are now in main)
• •Update the PR to target main instead of the old parent

2. Identify the Old Parent Branch

If not provided:

# Check what the PR is currently targeting
gh pr view --json baseRefName --jq '.baseRefName'

If the base is already main, ask the user which branch was the old parent.

3. Check Current State

git status --porcelain
git branch --show-current

Stash or commit uncommitted changes.

4. Fetch Latest Main

git fetch origin main

5. Find Your Commits

Identify which commits are uniquely yours (not from the merged parent):

# List commits on your branch not in main
git log origin/main..HEAD --oneline

# These should only be YOUR commits if parent was merged properly
# If you see parent's commits too, we need to be more selective

6. Rebase onto Main

Since the parent is now in main, rebasing onto main should work cleanly:

git rebase origin/main

If there are duplicate commits (your commits that conflict with the parent's merged version), git may skip them automatically or you may need to resolve conflicts.

7. Handle Conflicts or Duplicates

If git reports "already applied" commits:

• •These are likely parent commits that are now in main
• •They'll be skipped automatically

If real conflicts:

1. •Resolve each conflict
2. •git add {file}
3. •git rebase --continue

8. Force Push

git push --force-with-lease

9. Update PR Base to Main

gh pr edit --base main

10. Report Result

Inform the user:

• •Rebased onto main (parent was merged)
• •Updated PR to target main
• •X commits remain after rebase
• •Force pushed to origin