git push-stack

What are stacked pull requests

Imagine you have a branch feature with three commit A, B and C based on branch main.

To create stacked pull requests with this feature branch you have to:

• Creates a branch feature-A with only commit A based on main and create a pull request
• Creates a branch feature-B with only commit B based on feature-A and create a pull request
• Creates a branch feature-C with only commit C based on feature-C and create a pull request

And of courses stacked pull requests workflow doesn't work with forked repository as base branch of a pull request must live in the main repsository.

The problem with GitHub stacked pull request

Then you change commit A, well you have to updated all your branches manually and update each pull requests.

This a time consuming and error-prone process.

You can't update only feature-A otherwise other branch become outdated.

The compromise for the automation of the tidy process

Each time you change the feature branch and rebase/update your sub-feature branches all commit sha changes and maybe you added a commit, or removed one, or even reordered them. Making impossible to track what going on with the commit index or sha.

git-push-stack uses the same technique as other Code Review tools like Gerrit It injects automatically into commit message a random ID (via a git commit-msg hook), example:

Change-Id: I7074fdf5e24e2d4de721936260e4b962532c9735

These IDs will allow to track what is going on on your feature branch.

Like Gerrit, it makes no compromise and it assumes you commit messages are well written and use them in title and body of pull requests.

Also git-push-stack leverages the GitHub API to do the tidy jobs, keeping your local git repository clean.

Unlike Gerrit, it can't use custom namespace to hide the git reference on the remote repository, the branches must be in heads namespace to be able to open pull requests.

To ensures stacked pull requests can't be merged until the dependencies are not ready. We put the draft flag.

How the git workflow changes:

To uses git-push-stack you have to replace:

$ git checkout feature-A
...do some change and commit...
$ git push origin feature-A -f

$ git checkout feature-B
$ git rebase feature-A
$ git push origin feature-B -f

$ git checkout feature-C
$ git rebase feature-B
$ git push origin feature-C -f

by:

...do some change and commit...
$ git push-stack

Setup the git commit-msg hook:

$ git push-stack -s

Push Stack your pull request like a pro 🦾

$ git push-stack

Enjoy!

Installation

curl https://github.com/Mergifyio/git-push-stack/releases/download/....
chmod +x git-push-stack
sudo mv git-push-stack /usr/local/bin/git-push-stack

Build and install the binary:

$ poetry build && poetry run pyoxidizer build --release
$ strip build/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/release/install/git-push-stack
$ sudo cp build/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/release/install/git-push-stack /usr/local/bin/git-push-stack