I have the following scenario: o---o---Ma---o---o local-master / / | | .-b'------d' upstream-a | |/ : : o---o---a---b---c---d upstream-master Local-master branched from upstream-master in distant past. upstream-master periodically cuts tentative release branch upstream-a. When they do this, that branch point (a) is merged into local-master (Ma). Over time, upstream applies fixes to upstream-a, but does so by committing the fixes to upstream-master and then cherry-picking them to upstream-a. The question is how to best integrate the fixes on upstream-a into local-master, w/o causing a headache when upstream cuts the next tentative release branch, at which point upstrea-master will again need to be merged into local-master (and that will also have other local development). Here are two options I've considered: 1) Create a local-a integration branch, merged from upstream-a and local-master. Keep this branch up-to-date by periodically merging local-master and upstream-a: o---o---Ma---o---o local-master / / \ \ | | `o------`o local-a | | / / | | .-b'------d' upstream-a | |/ : : o---o---a---b---c---d upstream-master 2) Periodically merge upstream-a into local-master: o---o---Ma--o---o---o local-master / / / / | | .-b'------d' upstream-a | |/ : : o---o---a---b---c---d upstream-master Then when it is next time to merge upstream-master into local-master either: (a) Backout the upstream-a merges to local-master by reverting the merge commits which introduced them to local-master, then merge upstream-master. (b) Just merge upstream-master and carefully deal with all the conflicts. I think this will necessarily be an evil merge. (c) Create a new branch at point Ma and cherry-pick only the local commits from local-master past point Ma. This essentially gives me the clean local-master I would've had if I'd been doing (1) all along. - Are there any other options I'm missing? - If I'm going to do (2a), I'm wondering if I'm missing any subtleties. I've read the revert-a-faulty-merge how-to and I realize my history won't be the cleanest, but I think it should work and leave a picture like: o---o---Ma--o---o---o---o---Wd'---Wb'---Mi local-master / / / / / | | .-b'------d' upstream-a | | |/ : : | o---o---a---b---c---d---e---f---g---h---i upstream-master Wd' is the revert of d' into local master. Wb' is the revert of b' into local master. This reverts both merges from upstream-a into local master. There may be conflicts to resolve due to the local changes that happened in local-master. However, local-master should now be "clean" to merge in upstream-master w/o having to worry about conflicts between b and b', d and d'. Correct? Thanks, j. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html