Git. How to update feature branch withour merging unneccessary commits?

Question

Im a bit confused about these scenarios:

1. I have a task.
   I create feature branch, make work here.
   And then I create Pull Request to release-test branch.
   In order to avoid conflicts, first I have to update my feature branch. So I have to merge release-test into feature.
   But in this case, in my Pull Request I will have a lot of merged commits which I don't want to have. I want only my feature branch commits in PR.
   What should I do in this situation?

2. I pushed my feature branch and then conflict appears in PR. What are my next steps?
   I tried to revert to the last commit, made compare with release-test branch, then force push. Is this a good practice?

P.S. I'm using Intellij Idea if this would help

Answer 1

In order to avoid conflicts, first I have to update my feature branch. So I have to merge release-test into feature.

Don't: you should always merge from specific to integration branches, not the reverse.

• Your feature branch is a specific branch (specific for a given task you are isolating in its own branch)
• release-test is an integration branch (where multiple branches come to be merged)

If you need to update your feature branch compared to release-test, rebase it:

 cd /path/to/local/repo
 git switch feature
 git fetch
 git rebase origin/release-test
 # resolve potential conflict there
 git push --force

That will guarantee there won't be any conflict in your PR (automatically updated after the push --force), since your feature branch will only add new commits on top of the most recent remote release-test branch.