Re: [PATCH] branch: let --delete-merged find squash merged branches

From: Kristoffer Haugsbakk <kristofferhaugsbakk@fastmail.com>
Date: Sep 29, 2026, 13:31 UTC
Message-ID: <4c4fba69-e474-4ee3-8e34-73e76d42d3d5@app.fastmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <CALnO6CBq5Udc1rbk6efRj1q5pJNUDt-uvmSGDDen=CMH0dFOHQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Sep 29, 2026, at 13:18, D. Ben Knoble wrote:

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> On Tue, Sep 29, 2026 at 4:17 AM Kristoffer Haugsbakk
> <kristofferhaugsbakk@fastmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 29, 2026, at 09:52, Harald Nordgren wrote:
>> > [snip]
>> >
>> > Maybe I should include both examples in my text.
>>
>> My *guess* is that `git merge --squash` inspired the forge squashes.
>> But the forges popularized it.
>>
>> The apparent `git merge --squash` approach of using `git log` for
>> concatenating the commit messages isn’t that nice in my opinion. So I
>> wonder how much it is used.
>
> The same behavior is present in GitHub's default squash merge message,
> and almost no one I work with bothers to edit it.

The asterisk bullet points on GitHub are better than `git merge --squash`:

    Squashed commit of the following:

    [just `git log` of the commits in the range]

> It's really sad to lose the opportunity to have good commit messages
> when using squash-and-merge on a forge---not because we *cannot*, but
> because the defaults do not *encourage* it (and we all know how
> defaults affect user behavior!).

In my opinion squash merges cannot be implemented in a good way, in a way that leads to good commits. Fundamentally not. It’s the button to both squash “oops” and the incremental, valuable commits, resulting in a blob where even a manually written commit message cannot document all the changes properly. And the reasons why are laid out in your article, I think...

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>
> Anyway, see https://benknoble.github.io/blog/2024/08/02/github-squash/
> for a distillation of my thoughts from working around folks that
> squash carelessly.
>
> So, anecdotally: it is used widely due to defaults. Blech.

Which is excellent. Thanks for writing it.