# Updating dependent branches when rebasing, automagically

> Source: <https://www.jvt.me/posts/2026/08/25/git-rebase-update-refs/?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss>
> Published: 2026-08-25 13:56:12+00:00

I'm regularly rewriting my history, often with [the lens of improving my commit messages](https://www.jvt.me/posts/2026/08/17/hand-write-commits/).

On the [Renovate](https://docs.renovatebot.com/) project, we use a Merge Queue with Squash Merge, which means that if I do want to have atomic commits, I need to split them across PRs, which adds a bit of noise to manage them.

Alternatively, I could bypass branch protection requirements to do a rebase merge, but that's the only way to do a rebase merge with a Merge Queue.

Now that GitHub has launched [stacked PRs](https://github.github.com/gh-stack/), it's now possible to get this behaviour as I wanted, but with the safety of the Merge Queue.

But the issue is what happens when I've amended the commit message on one of the PRs, and now need to trigger a cascading rebase?

As of ~5 minutes ago, I would have to do that all manually, like a chump.

It turns out - thanks to a pointer from Claude Opus 5 - Git has had a capability to improve this for *years*! In [Git 2.38 (2022-10-03), git rebase --update-refs was added](https://github.blog/open-source/git/highlights-from-git-2-38/#rebase-dependent-branches-with-update-refs), which allows doing exactly this, but without any of the manual work.

For instance, if we run `git rebase -i origin/HEAD --update-refs`

, we'll get a prompt in our `$EDITOR`

like so:

```
pick 5c02d5df35 # fix(platform/bitbucket): remove support for Issues
update-ref refs/heads/fix/bitbucket-cloud-issues-removed
pick 8dd04828d3 # feat(http/bitbucket): surface deprecated and removed API functionality
update-ref refs/heads/feat/bitbucket-surface-api-deprecations
pick e7c9902237 # refactor(http): add a `handleResponse` hook
update-ref refs/heads/refactor/http-handle-response-hook
pick b989428159 # feat(http/bitbucket): warn when an endpoint announces a deprecation
# Rebase 7d7f286dc8..b989428159 onto 7d7f286dc8 (7 commands)
#
# Commands:
# ...
# u, update-ref <ref> = track a placeholder for the <ref> to be updated
# to this position in the new commits. The <ref> is
# updated at the end of the rebase
# ...
```

This then handles the updating of all the commits on relevant branches - a massive time saver!