/rebase-plan

Drafts a pick / squash / reword plan for git rebase -i to clean up a feature branch before PR. Advisory only - never executes the rebase.

Purpose

Interactive rebase is the right tool for consolidating wip commits - and the one most people get wrong on their first try. This skill proposes the todo-list your editor will show, so you walk into the rebase knowing what to do.

When to use

• Branch has typo/fixup/wip commits you want to consolidate into 1-3 clean commits before opening a PR.
• You want to reword a vague message ("stuff" → "refactor: extract parser") before it lands on main.

Never on branches already pushed to a shared remote - rebase rewrites history other people may have cloned.

Steps

1. Run git log main..HEAD --oneline --reverse to list commits on the current branch.
2. Refuse if the branch tracks a remote that has commits others may be using (git branch -vv shows [origin/...]) unless the user explicitly confirms they're the only collaborator.
3. Propose a rebase-todo grouping related commits:
4. pick the first logical commit in each group
5. squash (or fixup) follow-ups that fix typos or add missing changes
6. reword any commit whose message is vague or wrong
7. Print the proposed todo in the exact format git will show, and print the command to run (git rebase -i main).
8. Do not run the rebase. The human drives the editor.

Output format

Proposed rebase-todo:
  pick a1b2c3 feat: add Skills hub
  squash d4e5f6 fixup
  squash g7h8i9 typo in heading
  reword j0k1l2 → feat: wire cross-links

Run: git rebase -i main

Failure modes

• If the branch has ≤2 commits, report "no cleanup needed" and stop.
• Do not propose squashing across unrelated changes.
• Never run git rebase itself - advisory only.
• If git log main..HEAD returns empty, stop - branch may already match main.