Why git pull --rebase should probably be your default

Most developers run git pull dozens of times a week without thinking about it. And most of the time, it works. Then one day you open a PR and the reviewer says "can you clean up the merge commits?" You look at your branch and see three "Merge branch 'main' into feature/login" commits scattered through history. The feature itself is 5 commits. The log is a mess. That mess comes from one decision: using git pull instead of git pull --rebase . Here's what's actually happening, and why the rebase variant produces cleaner history for teams. The setup: diverged history You're working on feature/login . You commit two changes locally ( X , Y ). Meanwhile, your teammate pushes two commits to main ( C , D ). Your branch and main have now diverged . Neither is a strict superset of the other. Git needs to reconcile them when you pull. Shared history: A → B Your local: A → B → X → Y (you added X, Y) Remote main: A → B → C → D (teammate added C, D) Git has two strategies for this reconciliation. Strategy 1: git pull (merge) A plain git pull creates a merge commit that joins your local history with the remote. Your commits and the remote's commits both appear in the log, connected by a merge node. The git log reads: M Merge branch 'main' into feature/login D fix: timeout on slow connections Y feat: client-side validation C chore: upgrade eslint X feat: login form B (shared) A (shared) This is honest history — it records exactly what happened: parallel development that was joined at a specific point. But it's also noisy history — the merge commit has no meaningful changes, and the log interleaves commits that weren't conceptually related. Strategy 2: git pull --rebase With --rebase , Git takes a different approach. It: Temporarily sets aside your local commits ( X , Y ) Fast-forwards your branch to the tip of the remote ( D ) Replays your commits on top, one by one, creating new commits ( X' , Y' ) The git log reads: Y' feat: client-side validation X' feat: login form D fix: timeo