Squashing Git Commits by Author

Squashing Git Commits by Author | Generated by AI

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Understanding the Goal

Git doesn’t have a built-in “squash by author” command, but you can achieve this using interactive rebase to manually group and squash commits. The idea is to take the last 10 commits (assuming they involve 3 distinct authors) and merge each author’s commits into a single commit per author, resulting in 3 commits total.

This assumes:

You’re on the branch with those commits (e.g., main or feature branch).
The commits are linear (no merges).
You know the authors in advance.

If commits are non-linear or complex, this may require careful handling to avoid conflicts.

Steps to Squash Commits by Author

Check the Latest 10 Commits
Run git log --oneline -10 to see the last 10 commits, including their hashes, authors, and messages. Identify the authors (e.g., via git log --format="%an" -10 | sort | uniq to list unique authors).
Start an Interactive Rebase
Identify the commit before the 10th one. If your latest commit is at HEAD, and there are 10 commits, the base is HEAD~10. Run:
```
git rebase -i HEAD~10
```
This opens an editor (vim by default) with a list of the last 10 commits. It looks like this:
```
pick abc123 First commit by Author A  
pick def456 Second commit by Author A  
pick ghi789 Commit by Author B  
pick jkl012 Commit by Author C  
... (more commits)
```
- Each line starts with pick.
Mark Commits to Squash by Author
For each author, change pick to s (squash) on all their commits except the first one you want to keep for that author. Decide on:
- One “keep” commit per author (pick the earliest or most relevant one as the base).
- Change the rest by that author to s to squash them into it.
  Example (for 3 authors):
```
pick abc123 First commit by Author A (keep this one)  
s    def456 Second commit by Author A (squash into above)  
pick ghi789 Commit by Author B (keep this one)  
pick jkl012 First commit by Author C (keep this one)  
s    mno345 Second commit by Author C (squash into above)  
```
  Save and exit the editor. This starts the rebase.
Edit Commit Messages During Rebase
For each squash operation, Git will pause and let you edit the commit message (combining the squashed ones). Update it to something like “Squashed commits by Author A: description”. Save and continue.
If there are more squashes, repeat for each author. Run git rebase --continue after each edit.
If conflicts arise (rare in simple squash), resolve them with git add <file> then git rebase --continue.
Verify and Push
After rebase completes, check the log: git log --oneline -10. You should see 3 commits, each from one author.
Force-push if pushing to a shared branch (destructive rebase): git push --force-with-lease origin branch-name.
Warning: Only force-push if you’re sure the old commits aren’t needed elsewhere, as this rewrites history.

Tips and Caveats

If authors have many commits, group them efficiently in the rebase list (all of Author A’s together, etc.).
For automation, tools like git-interactive-rebase-tool or scripts can help, but manual rebase is straightforward.
If you need to filter by exact author, use git log --author="Author Name" beforehand to confirm.
Test on a backup branch first to avoid data loss.

For more on rebase: git help rebase. If this doesn’t match your exact scenario, provide more details about the commit structure.

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