git-rebase-all

Quickly generate rebase commands for all your branches with work in progress.

A script to generate rebase commands for all tip branches (branches that aren't contained by other branches) against a base branch.

Overview

This script identifies "tip branches" - branches that represent the latest work and aren't contained by other branches - and generates git rebase commands to rebase them onto a specified base branch. It's useful for keeping all active development branches up to date with the main development branch.

Usage

# Use automatic base branch detection, skip fully pushed branches
git rebase-all

# Include branches that are fully pushed to their upstream
git rebase-all --include-pushed

# Specify a custom base branch
git rebase-all main
git rebase-all develop

# Combine options
git rebase-all --include-pushed develop

Parameters

• --include-pushed: Include branches that are fully synchronized with their upstream remote
• <base-branch>: The base branch to rebase onto (default: auto-detected)

Base Branch Detection

If no base branch is specified, the script automatically searches for the first existing branch in this order:

1. develop
2. origin/develop
3. main
4. origin/main
5. master
6. origin/master

Output

The script outputs a series of rebase commands that can be executed:

git rebase 'develop' 'feature/login' || git rebase --abort
git rebase 'develop' 'feature/dashboard' || git rebase --abort
git rebase 'develop' 'bugfix/api-error' || git rebase --abort

Tip Branch Detection

A "tip branch" is identified as:

• A branch that is not contained by any other branch
• A branch that has commits not present in the base branch
• Not a remote-tracking branch

Use Cases

• Daily maintenance: Keep all feature branches up to date with the latest main/develop
• Before merging: Ensure your feature branch is based on the latest code
• Team workflow: Standardize how branches are kept current across the team

Examples

# Generate rebase commands for all tip branches
git rebase-all > rebase-commands.sh
chmod +x rebase-commands.sh
./rebase-commands.sh

# Execute directly with eval
eval "$(git rebase-all)"

# Review commands before executing
git rebase-all
# Then copy/paste the commands you want to run

Requirements

• Git repository with multiple branches
• Standard Unix utilities (sed, awk, wc)

Notes

• The script only generates commands; it doesn't execute them automatically
• Each rebase command includes || git rebase --abort for safety
• Branches that are fully pushed to their upstream are skipped by default
• Remote-tracking branches are automatically excluded
• The script sorts branches by commit date (most recent first)