--- title: Reworking Git Branches with git filter-branch | daily.dev description: A walkthrough of using `git filter-branch` to solve a complex documentation backport problem in the Debezium project. The situation involved divergent branch... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/reworking-git-branches-with-git-filter-branch-gkez485pn twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Reworking Git Branches with git filter-branch | daily.dev og:description: A walkthrough of using `git filter-branch` to solve a complex documentation backport problem in the Debezium project. The situation involved divergent branch... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/reworking-git-branches-with-git-filter-branch-gkez485pn og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/gKez485pN.png og:image:alt: Reworking Git Branches with git filter-branch og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Reworking Git Branches with git filter-branch **[Gunnar Morling](https://daily.dev/sources/gunnar-morling)** · 5 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A walkthrough of using `git filter-branch` to solve a complex documentation backport problem in the Debezium project. The situation involved divergent branch structures (monolithic vs. modularized AsciiDoc files) with hundreds of commits making cherry-picking impractical. The solution used `--subdirectory-filter` to isolate documentation-only commits from master, `--tree-filter` to restore the original directory layout, interactive rebase to clean up the first commit, and `git rebase --onto` to transplant the filtered commits onto the target branch. A final interactive rebase discarded commits irrelevant to the 1.0 release. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Stacked Diffs with \`git rebase --onto\`](https://daily.dev/posts/stacked-diffs-with-git-rebase---onto--cuvfc5g6f) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Merging GitHub Repositories](https://daily.dev/posts/merging-github-repositories-a4bvbgvww) · Kitty says hi. · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [A Better Way to Prune Git Branches: fzf and a Tiny Loop](https://daily.dev/posts/a-better-way-to-prune-git-branches-fzf-and-a-tiny-loop-wruwytdqv) · Atomic Spin · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [Git Rebase for the Terrified](https://daily.dev/posts/git-rebase-for-the-terrified-ynroja8em) · Hacker News · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Medium](https://daily.dev/posts/medium-l8tq260qn) · Medium · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#git](https://daily.dev/tags/git), [#version-control](https://daily.dev/tags/version-control) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/reworking-git-branches-with-git-filter-branch-gkez485pn) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Reworking Git Branches with git filter-branch","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/reworking-git-branches-with-git-filter-branch-gkez485pn","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/reworking-git-branches-with-git-filter-branch-gkez485pn"},"datePublished":"2026-03-16T08:14:20.901Z","dateModified":"2026-03-16T08:26:36.410Z","description":"A walkthrough of using `git filter-branch` to solve a complex documentation backport problem in the Debezium project. 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