skip to content
Artur's Blog

Git squash vs soft reset

/ 1 min read

I only found out less than a year ago. Many people use squash to have more control, but soft reset is much simpler specifically if using something like lazygit.

Lazygit flow

In lazygit I:

  • Select a commit on the commits pane
  • Press g then s (for soft reset)
  • All the commits above the selected one go into the staging area
  • I press c to create a new commit with the reset and I “squashed” a bunch of commits quickly

Quick lazygit commits

I use a lot of checkpoint commits. So I create a lot of commits called c because in lazygit after staging stuff I just press c + c + <enter> and in 3 strokes I’ve added a commit. This is especially useful with AI agents. Every working change after a prompt I commit.

And after some iterations I have a list of c named commits that I “squash” with a soft reset.

Comparison table

┌─────────────────┬─────────────────────┬─────────────────────┐
│                 │    Soft reset       │ Squash (rebase -i)  │
├─────────────────┼─────────────────────┼─────────────────────┤
│ Commit messages │ Lost                │ Merged or editable  │
├─────────────────┼─────────────────────┼─────────────────────┤
│ Granularity     │ All-or-nothing      │ Pick commits squash │
├─────────────────┼─────────────────────┼─────────────────────┤
│ Simplicity      │ Simpler             │ More control        │
└─────────────────┴─────────────────────┴─────────────────────┘