Why git push --force after rebase

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8939977/git-push-rejected-after-feature-branch-rebase

This post explain why we have to git push --force after rebase, otherwise it show error/warning message.

I'm too lazy to find it out, but this explain seem quite straightforward.

The problem is that git push assumes that remote branch can be fast-forwarded to your local branch, that is that all the difference between local and remote branches is in local having some new commits at the end like that:

Z--X--R         <- origin/some-branch (can be fast-forwarded to Y commit)

       \        

        T--Y    <- some-branch

When you perform git rebase commits D and E are applied to new base and new commits are created. That means after rebase you have something like that:

A--B--C------F--G--D'--E'   <- feature-branch

       \  

        D--E                <- origin/feature-branch

In that situation remote branch can't be fast-forwarded to local. Though, theoretically local branch can be merged into remote (obviously you don't need it in that case), but as git push performs only fast-forward merges it throws and error.

And what --force option does is just ignoring state of remote branch and setting it to the commit you're pushing into it. So git push --force origin feature-branch simply overrides origin/feature-branch with local feature-branch.

In my opinion, rebasing feature branches on master and force-pushing them back to remote repository is OK as long as you're the only one who works on that branch.

https://willi.am/blog/2014/08/12/the-dark-side-of-the-force-push/