Merge

Merge and rebase integrate work with different consequences for commit identity and ancestry. A merge normally retains the existing commits and joins their histories; a rebase transplants selected changes onto another base. The choice is not only how a graph looks. It affects review references, conflict handling, signatures, and collaborators who already depend on the old commits. Decide using the repository’s workflow and the actual branch relationships. ...

A merge connects histories and records a resulting project snapshot. In an ordinary merge of two diverged branches, the new commit names both prior tips as parents. Those parent links keep the earlier commits reachable, but they do not prove that the resulting files retain every intended behavior. Merging is both a graph operation and a content decision; verifying only one of those aspects leaves important mistakes undetected. ...