Why is rewriting public Git history dangerous, and when is rebase acceptable?
PICTURE THIS: GIT FLOW
Simple meaning
Force-pushing rewritten commits changes SHAs that teammates and CI already pulled, which causes duplicate commits and lost work.
WHY — Git instead of guessing?
Why interviewers care about Git:
on Git.
the situation, the default choice, and one exception - that reads as experience.
Name the idea, why it exists, then one short example.
End with when you use it and one common pitfall.
STEPS — What happens step by step?
Before you speak the answer, walk the interviewer through these steps:
- 1Force-pushing rewritten commits changes
SHAs that teammates and CI already pulled, which causes duplicate commits and lost work.
- 2Rebase is fine on
a local feature branch before it is shared.
- 3Once a branch is
on origin and others use it, prefer merge or revert.
- 4Give an example
One tiny concrete case you can say aloud.
- 5Common mistake
What juniors usually get wrong.
- 6Close
When you pick this over the alternative.
EXAMPLE — See it in action
Here's a short line you can speak, broken into clear beats:
Note: Adapt this scaffold to your own project — keep it under 60–90 seconds.
Key takeaway
Force-pushing rewritten commits changes SHAs that teammates and CI already pulled, which causes duplicate commits and lost work. Rebase is fine on a local feature branch before it is shared.