From: Siddharth Asthana <siddharthasthana31@gmail•com>
To: Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx•de>
Cc: git@vger•kernel.org, christian.couder@gmail•com, ps@pks•im,
newren@gmail•com, gitster@pobox•com, phillip.wood123@gmail•com,
phillip.wood@dunelm•org.uk, karthik.188@gmail•com,
code@khaugsbakk•name, rybak.a.v@gmail•com, jltobler@gmail•com,
toon@iotcl•com, johncai86@gmail•com
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/1] replay: add --revert option to reverse commit changes
Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2025 00:48:53 +0530 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <27fef9e1-bf26-48af-b3df-35948937c891@gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <4d75da90-7e85-573a-bb10-0c63a02b076c@gmx.de>
On 25/11/25 22:55, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> Hi Siddharth,
>
> On Tue, 25 Nov 2025, Siddharth Asthana wrote:
>
>> The `git replay` command currently supports cherry-picking commits for
>> server-side history rewriting, but lacks the ability to revert them.
>> This patch adds a `--revert` option to enable reversing commits directly
>> on bare repositories.
>>
>> At GitLab, we use replay in Gitaly for efficient server-side operations.
>> Adding revert functionality enables us to reverse problematic commits
>> without client-side roundtrips, reducing network overhead.
>>
>> The implementation leverages the insight that cherry-pick and revert are
>> essentially the same merge operation with swapped arguments. By swapping
>> the base and pickme trees when calling `merge_incore_nonrecursive()`, we
>> effectively reverse the diff direction. The existing conflict handling,
>> ref updates, and atomic transaction support work unchanged.
Hi Johannes,
Thanks for the review!
> Are you reverting rebased Merge Requests commit by commit? If not, I would
> suggest the shortcut to use `merge-tree` directly for the entire Merge
> Request.
That's a great point. At GitLab, we have use cases for both approaches:
1. For quick undoing an entire MR, the `merge-tree` approach you
suggest is indeed more efficient and avoids unnecessary intermediate
conflicts.
2. For commit-by-commit reverts, we need individual revert commits with
proper attribution (which commit is being reverted) for auditability and
history clarity. This is particularly useful when only specific commits
from a merged branch need to be reverted.
I will add a note in the documentation mentioning the `merge-tree`
alternative for whole-MR reverts.
> That is, if `$BASE` corresponds to the base branch onto which the
> Merge Request was rebased, and `$TIP` corresponds to the Merge Request's
> rebased tip commit, then the following will revert that Merge Request:
>
> git merge-tree --merge-base $TIP HEAD $BASE
>
> The upside is that this can potentially avoid a lot of unnecessary merge
> conflicts. The downside is that it does not revert the rebased Merge
> Request commit by commit.
>
> The patch itself looks fine to me, if a bit too extensive on the side of
> adding tests
Agreed. Looking at the tests again, I can consolidate several of them:
- The bare repo test can be merged with the basic revert test
- The multiple commits test overlaps with the basic functionality
I will trim down to essential coverage in v2: basic revert, conflict
handling, and Reapply behavior.
Thanks,
Siddharth
> : Remember, a nimble test suite that catches a bug once is
> better than a long-running test suite that would catch a bug several times
> _iff_ it didn't tax the developer's patience so much that it is
> interrupted and aborted. You probably agree that Git's CI runtimes are
> already counter-productively long.
>
> Ciao,
> Johannes
>
>> The revert message generation logic is extracted into a new shared
>> `sequencer_format_revert_header()` function in `sequencer.c`, allowing
>> code reuse between `sequencer.c` and `builtin/replay.c`. The commit
>> messages follow `git revert` conventions, including "Revert"/"Reapply"
>> prefixes and the original commit SHA.
>>
>> This patch includes comprehensive tests covering various scenarios:
>> bare repositories, --advance mode, conflicts, reapply behavior, and
>> multiple commits.
>>
>> Siddharth Asthana (1):
>> replay: add --revert option to reverse commit changes
>>
>> Documentation/git-replay.adoc | 35 +++++++-
>> builtin/replay.c | 86 ++++++++++++++----
>> sequencer.c | 23 +++++
>> sequencer.h | 8 ++
>> t/t3650-replay-basics.sh | 160 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>> 5 files changed, 295 insertions(+), 17 deletions(-)
>>
>> --
>> 2.51.0
>>
>>
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2025-11-26 19:19 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 96+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2025-11-25 17:00 [PATCH 0/1] replay: add --revert option to reverse commit changes Siddharth Asthana
2025-11-25 17:00 ` [PATCH 1/1] " Siddharth Asthana
2025-11-25 19:22 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-11-25 19:30 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-11-25 19:39 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-11-25 20:06 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-11-26 19:31 ` Siddharth Asthana
2025-11-26 19:28 ` Siddharth Asthana
2025-11-26 19:26 ` Siddharth Asthana
2025-11-26 21:13 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-11-27 19:23 ` Siddharth Asthana
2025-11-26 11:10 ` Phillip Wood
2025-11-26 17:35 ` Elijah Newren
2025-11-26 18:41 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-11-26 21:17 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-11-26 23:06 ` Elijah Newren
2025-11-26 23:14 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-11-26 23:57 ` Elijah Newren
2025-11-26 19:50 ` Siddharth Asthana
2025-11-26 19:39 ` Siddharth Asthana
2025-11-27 16:21 ` Phillip Wood
2025-11-27 19:24 ` Siddharth Asthana
2025-11-25 17:25 ` [PATCH 0/1] " Johannes Schindelin
2025-11-25 18:02 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-11-26 19:18 ` Siddharth Asthana [this message]
2025-11-26 21:04 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-11-27 19:21 ` Siddharth Asthana
2025-11-27 20:17 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-11-28 8:07 ` Elijah Newren
2025-11-28 8:24 ` Siddharth Asthana
2025-11-28 16:35 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-11-28 17:07 ` Elijah Newren
2025-11-28 20:50 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-11-28 22:03 ` Elijah Newren
2025-11-29 5:59 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-12-02 20:16 ` [PATCH v2 0/2] replay: add --revert mode " Siddharth Asthana
2025-12-02 20:16 ` [PATCH v2 1/2] sequencer: extract revert message formatting into shared function Siddharth Asthana
2025-12-05 11:33 ` Patrick Steinhardt
2025-12-07 23:00 ` Siddharth Asthana
2025-12-08 7:07 ` Patrick Steinhardt
2026-02-11 13:03 ` Toon Claes
2026-02-11 13:40 ` Patrick Steinhardt
2026-02-11 15:23 ` Kristoffer Haugsbakk
2026-02-11 17:41 ` Junio C Hamano
2026-02-18 22:53 ` Siddharth Asthana
2025-12-02 20:16 ` [PATCH v2 2/2] replay: add --revert mode to reverse commit changes Siddharth Asthana
2025-12-05 11:33 ` Patrick Steinhardt
2025-12-07 23:03 ` Siddharth Asthana
2025-12-16 16:23 ` Phillip Wood
2026-02-18 23:42 ` [PATCH v3 0/2] " Siddharth Asthana
2026-02-18 23:42 ` [PATCH v3 1/2] sequencer: extract revert message formatting into shared function Siddharth Asthana
2026-02-20 17:01 ` Toon Claes
2026-02-25 21:53 ` Junio C Hamano
2026-03-06 4:55 ` Siddharth Asthana
2026-03-06 4:31 ` Siddharth Asthana
2026-02-26 14:27 ` Phillip Wood
2026-03-06 5:00 ` Siddharth Asthana
2026-02-18 23:42 ` [PATCH v3 2/2] replay: add --revert mode to reverse commit changes Siddharth Asthana
2026-02-20 17:35 ` Toon Claes
2026-02-20 20:23 ` Junio C Hamano
2026-02-23 9:13 ` Christian Couder
2026-02-23 11:23 ` Toon Claes
2026-03-06 5:05 ` Siddharth Asthana
2026-02-26 14:45 ` Phillip Wood
2026-03-06 5:28 ` Siddharth Asthana
2026-03-06 15:52 ` Phillip Wood
2026-03-06 16:20 ` Siddharth Asthana
2026-03-13 5:40 ` [PATCH v4 0/2] " Siddharth Asthana
2026-03-13 5:40 ` [PATCH v4 1/2] sequencer: extract revert message formatting into shared function Siddharth Asthana
2026-03-13 15:53 ` Junio C Hamano
2026-03-16 19:12 ` Toon Claes
2026-03-16 16:57 ` Phillip Wood
2026-03-13 5:40 ` [PATCH v4 2/2] replay: add --revert mode to reverse commit changes Siddharth Asthana
2026-03-16 16:57 ` Phillip Wood
2026-03-16 19:52 ` Toon Claes
2026-03-17 10:11 ` Phillip Wood
2026-03-16 16:59 ` [PATCH v4 0/2] " Phillip Wood
2026-03-16 19:53 ` Toon Claes
2026-03-24 22:03 ` [PATCH v5 " Siddharth Asthana
2026-03-24 22:04 ` [PATCH v5 1/2] sequencer: extract revert message formatting into shared function Siddharth Asthana
2026-03-24 22:04 ` [PATCH v5 2/2] replay: add --revert mode to reverse commit changes Siddharth Asthana
2026-03-25 6:29 ` Junio C Hamano
2026-03-25 15:10 ` Toon Claes
2026-03-25 15:38 ` Siddharth Asthana
2026-03-25 16:44 ` Phillip Wood
2026-03-25 15:36 ` Siddharth Asthana
2026-03-25 20:23 ` [PATCH v6 0/2] " Siddharth Asthana
2026-03-25 20:23 ` [PATCH v6 1/2] sequencer: extract revert message formatting into shared function Siddharth Asthana
2026-03-25 20:23 ` [PATCH v6 2/2] replay: add --revert mode to reverse commit changes Siddharth Asthana
2026-03-28 4:33 ` Tian Yuchen
2026-03-29 16:17 ` Siddharth Asthana
2026-03-30 17:23 ` Tian Yuchen
2026-03-31 8:08 ` Toon Claes
2026-03-31 8:11 ` Toon Claes
2026-03-25 20:23 ` [PATCH v6 1/2] sequencer: extract revert message formatting into shared function Siddharth Asthana
2026-03-25 20:23 ` [PATCH v6 2/2] replay: add --revert mode to reverse commit changes Siddharth Asthana
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
switches of git-send-email(1):
git send-email \
--in-reply-to=27fef9e1-bf26-48af-b3df-35948937c891@gmail.com \
--to=siddharthasthana31@gmail$(echo .)com \
--cc=Johannes.Schindelin@gmx$(echo .)de \
--cc=christian.couder@gmail$(echo .)com \
--cc=code@khaugsbakk$(echo .)name \
--cc=git@vger$(echo .)kernel.org \
--cc=gitster@pobox$(echo .)com \
--cc=jltobler@gmail$(echo .)com \
--cc=johncai86@gmail$(echo .)com \
--cc=karthik.188@gmail$(echo .)com \
--cc=newren@gmail$(echo .)com \
--cc=phillip.wood123@gmail$(echo .)com \
--cc=phillip.wood@dunelm$(echo .)org.uk \
--cc=ps@pks$(echo .)im \
--cc=rybak.a.v@gmail$(echo .)com \
--cc=toon@iotcl$(echo .)com \
/path/to/YOUR_REPLY
https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line
before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox