How to abort a rebase in Git
Łukasz Holeczek
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Aborting a Git rebase safely returns the repository to its original state when conflicts or issues arise during the rebase process.
As the creator of CoreUI with over 25 years of experience managing complex development workflows, I’ve used rebase abort countless times when resolving complicated merge conflicts and branch management.
From my expertise, the most reliable approach is using git rebase --abort which immediately cancels the current rebase and restores the branch to its pre-rebase state.
This command is essential for recovering from problematic rebases without losing work or corrupting repository history.
Use git rebase --abort to safely cancel an ongoing rebase and return to the original branch state.
git rebase --abort
Here git rebase --abort immediately stops the current rebase operation and restores the branch to exactly the same state it was in before the rebase began. This command works at any point during an interactive rebase, whether you’re in the middle of resolving conflicts, editing commits, or facing other rebase issues. All changes made during the rebase are discarded, and the HEAD pointer returns to the original commit before the rebase started.
Best Practice Note:
This is the same approach we use in CoreUI development when complex rebases become problematic or when we need to restart the rebase with a different strategy. Always abort a rebase rather than forcing it through if you encounter unexpected conflicts or realize the rebase approach isn’t working correctly.
