Refactoring and Git Rebase Practice

I worked on improving my tool Repository-Context-Packager by cleaning up its structure, simplifying logic, and organizing responsibilities between files. I did three main refactors during this time:

1. In the original version, my cli.js file had a single .action() callback that was over 110 lines long. It was doing everything — argument parsing, path resolution, file scanning, Git info extraction, and even text formatting. To fix this, I extracted the logic into smaller helper functions, each with a single clear purpose. This made the code easier to read, test, and reuse.

2. I noticed that cli.js was performing the same path filtering multiple times. To improve maintainability, I extracted this repetitive logic into a single utility function. This ensures consistent filtering and reduces the chance of bugs if the logic ever needs to change later.

3. Before refactoring, the cli.js file was both the entry point and the core logic handler of the tool. Now, it’s cleanly separated.
   cli.js: only defines command-line interface. repository-processor.js: handles all repository analysis and formatting logic.
   This makes the codebase easier to extend. For example, adding a new feature no longer requires touching the CLI file at all — it just goes into the processor.

After refactoring, I had multiple commits that were small but messy. To clean up my commit history, I used rebase to combine related commits and edited messages for clarity. I also squashed them into one meaningful commit. I also practiced git commit --amend to make small corrections without creating unnecessary new commits.

I didn’t encounter any bugs or break the program while I change the codebase structure. I think the reason is that I move only one small function or logic piece at a time, and testing immediately after each change. This way, if anything went wrong, it would be easy to locate and fix right away.