Tutorial - Part 9: Automating workflow with traverse

If you have a chain of branches like feature-2 → feature-1 → develop, and develop gets new commits, both feature-1 and feature-2 will become out of sync.

Updating them one by one with git machete update is fine, but git-machete can do better.

The traverse command

The traverse command is a core feature of git-machete. To walk through your branch tree and sync your branches, run:

git machete traverse

For each branch that needs attention, it will ask you:

• Rebase onto parent?
• Push to remote?
• Pull from remote?
• Slide out (if it's already merged)?

Common options

You can make traverse even more automated with flags:

• --fetch — run git fetch before starting.
• --whole — walk through the entire branch tree instead of starting from the current branch.
• -W — equivalent to --fetch --whole.
• --yes or -y — automatically confirm all actions.

Example workflow

git machete traverse -W -y

This single command will:

1. Fetch latest changes from the server.
2. Walk through all branches in your layout.
3. Rebase any out-of-sync branches.
4. Push or pull branches as needed.
5. Slide out merged branches.

All without asking for confirmation.

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