Delete Squash-merged local Git Branches

Shock at "git branches"

A node utility to delete local branches that have already been merged into a mainline via the squash-merge strategy. (Frequently used on Github.)

With normal merge commits, you can run git branch --merged to get a list of already-merged branches, but with squash-merge you end up with new commits that contain your feature branch's work.

This util will find those already-squashed-and-merged branches and optionally delete them.

<summary>Explanation of what's going on under the hood</summary>

Gets the branch list by name
- git for-each-ref refs/heads/ --format=%(refname:short)
Then for each branch found:
- Find the ancestor commit where ThisBranch left BaseBranch
  - git merge-base <BaseBranch> <ThisBranch>
- Get the tree ID
  - git rev-parse <ThisBranch>^{tree}
- Make up a temporary commit with the contents ThisBranch squashed together
  - git commit-tree <TreeID> -p <AncestorSha> -m "Temp <ThisBranch>"
- See if the temp commit contents was already applied to upstream
  - git cherry <BaseBranch> <TempPatchSha>
- If the above output starts with - the branch is a candidate for deletion
```
</details>
```

Usage:

By default, this utility runs in dry mode. You will be prompted if you actually want to run any destructive changes.

The easiest way to use @betaorbust/github-loppers is via NPX:

cd ~/code/myProject             # Get to your local repo
npx @betaorbust/github-loppers   # Run the utility

which will @betaorbust/github-loppers directly so you can either list out or delete your stale branches.

Demo of running "npx https://github.com/betaorbust/github-loppers"

Requirements:

Node >= 18.18.0
Git
That the mainline branch your checking against is checked out locally.

Acknowledgments

Git logic from @not-an-aardvark's awesome implementation.

Package detail

@betaorbust/github-loppers

readme

Delete Squash-merged local Git Branches

Usage:

Requirements:

Acknowledgments