How to update master with development branch while keeping the commit history clean

update_master_branch.md

First create an integration branch out of your development branch

git checkout -b myfeature-int

• This guarantees that you won't spoil your development branch
• This is especially valid for dev branches that are also remote, we should never rewrite the history of a shared branch

Then rebase that new branch onto master

git rebase -i master myfeature-int

• Ideally you do an interactive rebase with the -i flag, so that you can squash, reorder, or drop commits
• Having 3 commits for subsequently renaming a class is an ideal candidate for squashing
• Don't hesitate to re-do it several times over. It's easier to, for example, first reorder some commits, make sure they can be re-applied in that order, then do a second rebase to squash'em.

Publish that integration branch, so this can be used for reviews

git push -u origin myfeature-int

• Now all your commits are stacked on top of the latest master, therefore merging to master should be a fast-forward. We want to enforce this.
• git checkout master
• git merge myfeature-int --ff-only
• This will reject non fast-forward merges

Finally if you have to pull again from master before pushing, don't forget to do a pull rebase.

• git pull --rebase

Delete your integration branch

• git branch -d myfeature-int
• If you pushed it, then delete the remote branch too: git push origin --delete myfeature-int

Stolen from https://wiki.magnolia-cms.com/display/DEV/Git%3A+merging+a+development+branch+into+master