Re: REBASE_HEAD still exists after success end rebase

On 28/07/2026 10:39, Matt Hunter wrote:
> On Tue Jul 28, 2026 at 4:26 AM EDT, Long 76 wrote:
>>
>> In other words REBASE_HEAD exists if ogirinal commit in new branch
>> modified and need call git push --force to send it to server. Please fix
>> it, thanks!

The need for "--force" when pushing is due to you having rebased the 
branch, it is unrelated to the existence of REBASE_HEAD (other than the 
fact that it exists indicates you have rebased). Rebasing rewrites the 
history which means that the remote cannot fast-forward when you push. 
Rather than using "--force" I'd recommend "--force-with-lease 
--force-if-includes" instead (see the "git push" man page for more details).

> I ran into this not that long ago too, while working on a script.  It
> looked like this behavior depended on how the _last_ item in the rebase
> todo list was handled.  I found if the last action was a squash or edit
> (I don't think reword did this), then REBASE_HEAD was left behind.
> 
> Also, if rebase stops on a break command, then REBASE_HEAD will be
> missing, even though a rebase is still in-progress.
> 
> I made a very short-lived effort to look into why this "bug" was
> happening.  I say "bug" in quotes, because I'm not even sure if it is
> even problematic behavior.

I think leaving REBASE_HEAD behind after a rebase is a bug, albeit not a 
very serious one. Looking at the code we delete it before processing 
each command, but do not clean it up after the last command.

> I solved my need at the time (detecting a rebase in progress) by
> checking for the existence of either of the 'rebase-merge' or
> 'rebase-apply' directories in $GIT_DIR.

That's the best way to detect if a rebase is in progress - REBASE_HEAD 
only exists when there are conflicts, or the editor is opened for the 
user to reword a commit. It does not exist when the user is editing the 
todo list at the start of a rebase; when stopping for conflicts after a 
"merge parent" command without "-C"; when stopping for a break or failed 
exec command.

Thanks

Phillip