Git cleanup-branches

Additionally to the existing git squash and git fixup I added another piece in my custom git toolbox fitting in with the git fixup workflow:

git cleanup-branches

This one is especially useful if you work in a team and work with pull / merge requests, and need to once in a while clean up the branches in your local repository.

The script consists of 3 steps:

1. Prune remote branches This means that all branches which don't exist in the remote repository anymore are also deleted locally
2. Remove merged branches Branches that have been merged to the default branch (i.e. main or master) are deleted. This is useful if you previously merged a PR / MR.
3. Remove branches from other authors This step removes branches that don't have any commits by you. This usually happens when you checked out a branch by someone else, possibly to review their work.

A sample session could look like this:

 ~/src/example ⑂ main ? = ➜ git cleanup-branches
No local changes to save
Already on 'main'
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/main'.
🥁 Pruning remote branches...
Fetching origin
From github.com:koffeinfrei/example
 - [deleted]            (none)    -> origin/fix/weird-stuff
 - [deleted]            (none)    -> origin/feat/nice-stuff

🥁 Removing merged branches...
Deleted branch feature/feat/nice-stuff (was fee237764).

🥁 Removing branches from other authors...
You don't seem to have any commits in the branch ⑂ feature/docs/add-deployment-section

 * 91e8d233a 2022-07-05 Document deployment (feature/docs/prompt-for-sw-updates) [Gob Bluth]

Delete the branch 'feature/docs/prompt-for-sw-updates'? (y/n)? y
Deleted branch feature/docs/prompt-for-sw-updates (was 91e8d233a).

Already on 'main'
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/main'.

The source code is available on GitHub.

Comments

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