Git: How to squash all commits on `master` branch? [duplicate]

Question

I'm looking for a way to squash all git commits into a single big commit in master branch. I fully understand the consequences of what I'm trying to do, no need to explain that this is dangerous or that it's not the right way to go - I want to lose all my history and turn this repository into a single big commit.

The main problem is: I have no other living branches, no local commits, and all of the previous commits have already been pushed to remote master.

Hacky scripts are also welcome.

Answer 1

I would use git reset --soft:

git reset --soft id-of-first-revision-of-master
git commit --amend -m "single commit for master"

Then you can git push --force wherever you need that new branch.

Update

I can think of another simple way to do it, with more git commands:

git checkout --orphan some-branch
git commit -m "First commit"
git branch -f master # move the local branch
git checkout master
git branch -d some-branch # delete the temp branch

It could also be done like this, in a more hackish fashion:

git commit-tree -m "First commit" HEAD^{tree}

That will write a revision.... if you check it out, you will have a single revision, content will be exactly like it is where you were standing before.... feel free to move the local branch (as explained in the previous recipe)

Answer 2

You can still modify the history on the upstream by using git push --force-with-lease. However you have to be aware of the consequences.

Using git push --force will create a parallel tree on your upstream so all the developers may find themselves lost in a legacy branch.

In order to squash your history, simply do:

git rebase -i HEAD~10

Where 10 is the number + 1 of commits you want to squash together. If you want to squash all the commits, then just refer your <first-commit-hash> instead of HEAD~10. Then on the editor you select squash for all the commits you want to group together. You can do search/replace: pick by squash

Once done, simply push your changes:

git push --force-with-lease

I would never recommend to do --force because if another developer has pushed a commit in the meantime you will erase its move. By using --force-with-lease Git will prevent you to push if somebody else has pushed on the top of your last change (see this question for more details).