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Isn't it a pretty bad idea to have a workflow which involves --force? If it's to keep history tidy, why not just develop on a separate branch and do squash merges?

I'll admit I haven't used git in extremely complex circumstances, but I've always viewed --force as something you do only if you really mess up, such as pushing secrets (and that should obviously be in addition to invalidating those keys and generating new ones).

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Working on a separate branch may still require periodically bringing in changes from master (eg. to resolve conflicts). The options are either a) a merge commit or b) a rebase. A rebase will require a `--force` push. Some people prefer merges, but personally I prefer rebasing - I like to keep my full history even when merging back to master, since it's not a lot of extra effort and it can be useful when tracking down issues in old code :)

the rebase strategy involves force-pushing to your topic branch and then ff-merging to master (or develop, or whatever). some people love it, some hate it, but force pushing is a necessary part of the strategy if the master branch has had new commits since you created your branch.

yes, force pushing can be dangerous, which is why (when you use the rebase strategy) you usually protect certain branches. force-pushing should only happen on your short-lived topic branches.

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