oliverdavies.uk/content/node.121756bd-8e3e-4ba4-a0eb-76178deebc60.yml

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title:
  - value: 'Squashing commits can be OK'
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  - value: "<p>As well as <a href=\"/daily/2025/04/04/good\">writing good commit messages</a>, I've previously written about <a href=\"/daily/2023/01/25/to-squash-or-not-to-squash\">not squashing commits</a> when merging.</p><p>I think it's beneficial to keep the history of the commits that led to a change, especially if detailed messages have been written for some of the commits.</p><p>Typically, if the commits are squashed as part of a pull or merge request, the history and information is lost or all the messages are merged together - making them hard to read and, arguably, less valuable.</p><p>If you're working in a pair or mob and <a href=\"/daily/2025/06/01/good-commit-messages-dont-always-matter\">creating temporary commits on a short-lived branch</a>, that's a situation when squashing commits is OK - as long as it's done properly.</p><p>I wouldn't have a generic automatically generated message.</p><p>I'd take the time to review the changes on the temporary branch and compare them to the mainline, remove any unrelated changes and write a new commit message that describes all the changes.</p><p>I'd make sure the new message is used and not lost when merged - especially when using online tools.</p><p>Then I can squash any temporary commits and merge the final squashed version.</p>"
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    processed: "<p>As well as <a href=\"/daily/2025/04/04/good\">writing good commit messages</a>, I've previously written about <a href=\"/daily/2023/01/25/to-squash-or-not-to-squash\">not squashing commits</a> when merging.</p><p>I think it's beneficial to keep the history of the commits that led to a change, especially if detailed messages have been written for some of the commits.</p><p>Typically, if the commits are squashed as part of a pull or merge request, the history and information is lost or all the messages are merged together - making them hard to read and, arguably, less valuable.</p><p>If you're working in a pair or mob and <a href=\"/daily/2025/06/01/good-commit-messages-dont-always-matter\">creating temporary commits on a short-lived branch</a>, that's a situation when squashing commits is OK - as long as it's done properly.</p><p>I wouldn't have a generic automatically generated message.</p><p>I'd take the time to review the changes on the temporary branch and compare them to the mainline, remove any unrelated changes and write a new commit message that describes all the changes.</p><p>I'd make sure the new message is used and not lost when merged - especially when using online tools.</p><p>Then I can squash any temporary commits and merge the final squashed version.</p>"
    summary: ''
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