git rebase -i --exec and changing directory

Hello,

I am trying to run a script to edit multiple commits using 'git rebase -i --exec ...' and I ran into a strange behavior when I run 'cd' inside the --exec command and subsequently run a git command. For example, if the command is 'cd src && git status', then git status reports as if all files in the repository are deleted.

Example command sequence to reproduce the problem:

    # Setup:
    touch a
    mkdir dir
    touch dir/x

    git init .
    git add --all
    git commit -m commit1
    git tag base
    touch b
    git add --all
    git commit -m commit2

    # Here we go:
    git rebase -i --exec 'cd dir && git status' base

    # Spawning a sub-shell doesn't help:
    git rebase -i --exec '(cd dir && git status)' base

Is this expected behavior or did I found a bug? Is there any workaround, other than cd'ing to the toplevel directory every time I want to run a git command when I am inside a subdirectory?

$ git --version git version 2.17.0

Thanks,

Ondrej Mosnacek