git-absorb

git-absorb

This DevContainer feature installs git-absorb, a tool that automatically absorbs staged changes into their logical commits. It’s like git commit --fixup but automatic.

Features

• Automatic fixup commits: Absorbs staged changes into existing commits automatically
• Multi-architecture support: Works on x86_64 and aarch64 Linux systems
• Latest version: Always installs the most recent release by default
• Git integration: Available as git absorb subcommand
• Lightweight: Single binary installation with minimal dependencies

Usage

Add this feature to your devcontainer.json:

{
    "features": {
        "ghcr.io/helpers4/devcontainer/git-absorb:1": {}
    }
}

Options

Option	Type	Default	Description
version	string	latest	Version of git-absorb to install (e.g., “0.6.11” or “latest”)

Examples

Basic usage (latest version)

{
    "features": {
        "ghcr.io/helpers4/devcontainer/git-absorb:1": {}
    }
}

Specific version

{
    "features": {
        "ghcr.io/helpers4/devcontainer/git-absorb:1": {
            "version": "0.6.11"
        }
    }
}

How git-absorb works

git-absorb automatically identifies which commits your staged changes belong to and creates fixup commits for them.

Workflow example:

1. Make some commits:

   git commit -m "Add feature A"
   git commit -m "Add feature B"
   git commit -m "Add feature C"

2. Make changes to files (fix bugs, improve code, etc.)

3. Stage your changes:

   git add .

4. Let git-absorb work its magic:

   git absorb

git-absorb will automatically create fixup commits that can be squashed into the appropriate original commits using git rebase --autosquash.

Preview changes first:

git absorb --dry-run

This shows what git-absorb would do without actually creating commits.

Commands

Once installed, you can use git-absorb in several ways:

As a Git subcommand:

git absorb                    # Absorb staged changes
git absorb --dry-run         # Preview what would be absorbed
git absorb --help           # Show help

As a standalone command:

git-absorb                   # Absorb staged changes
git-absorb --dry-run        # Preview what would be absorbed
git-absorb --version        # Show version

Use cases

• Bug fixes: Fix a bug and let git-absorb put the fix in the right commit
• Code improvements: Refactor code and automatically organize changes
• Documentation: Add comments or docs and absorb them into relevant commits
• Style fixes: Fix formatting and absorb into the commits that introduced the code

Tips

1. Use —dry-run first to see what git-absorb plans to do
2. Stage only what you want to absorb - git-absorb only works with staged changes
3. Works best with recent commits - git-absorb looks at recent history to find matching commits
4. Combine with git rebase —autosquash to clean up your branch before merging

Requirements

• Git must be installed and configured
• Linux x86_64 or aarch64 architecture
• Recent commits in your repository (git-absorb needs context to work with)

Architecture support

• ✅ Linux x86_64 (amd64)
• ✅ Linux aarch64 (ARM64)
• ❌ Other architectures (not supported by upstream git-absorb releases)

Troubleshooting

• “No commits available to fix up”: You need existing commits for git-absorb to work with
• Changes not absorbed: Make sure your changes are staged (git add)
• Binary not found: Check that /usr/local/bin is in your PATH

About git-absorb

git-absorb is created by tummychow and is inspired by Facebook’s hg absorb command for Mercurial. It uses advanced heuristics to determine which commits your changes should be absorbed into.

For more information, visit the official git-absorb repository.

Contributing

This feature is part of the helpers4/devcontainer-features repository. Contributions and issues are welcome!