Interactive Rebase

Preventing Editor Prompts

Always set both env vars to avoid blocking on an editor:

• GIT_SEQUENCE_EDITOR — edits the rebase-todo file (use sed or a bash script).
• GIT_EDITOR=true — suppresses any editor during the rebase (merge messages, squash messages). For rewords, replace with a sed script that edits the message file.

GIT_SEQUENCE_EDITOR="<command>" GIT_EDITOR=true git rebase -i <target>

Never run a bare git rebase -i — it opens vim and blocks the agent.

Use sed -i '' on macOS, sed -i on Linux.

Patterns

# Squash all into first
GIT_SEQUENCE_EDITOR="sed -i '' '2,\$s/^pick/squash/'" GIT_EDITOR=true git rebase -i <target>

# Fixup all into first (discard messages)
GIT_SEQUENCE_EDITOR="sed -i '' '2,\$s/^pick/fixup/'" GIT_EDITOR=true git rebase -i <target>

# Drop a commit
GIT_SEQUENCE_EDITOR="sed -i '' 's/^pick <hash>/drop <hash>/'" GIT_EDITOR=true git rebase -i <target>

# Reword — GIT_EDITOR becomes a sed script instead of `true`
GIT_SEQUENCE_EDITOR="sed -i '' 's/^pick <hash>/reword <hash>/'" \
  GIT_EDITOR="sed -i '' '1s/.*/New commit message/'" \
  git rebase -i <target>

# Multi-action
GIT_SEQUENCE_EDITOR='bash -c "
  sed -i \"\" \
    -e \"s/^pick <hash1>/squash <hash1>/\" \
    -e \"s/^pick <hash2>/drop <hash2>/\" \
    \"\$1\"
"' GIT_EDITOR=true git rebase -i <target>