Jujutsu for everyone

I do this every day in git. “git rebase -i [hash]” fyi.

you think you do, but you don't; jj edit is much, much better than an edit step in a rebase - it essentially keeps rebasing while you're editing, so you can always see which changes get conflicts, then you are free to resolve them, or not, at your convenience.

So you get all merge conflicts at once? How is that better?

it's exponentially better because you don't need to resolve them until you're ready. conflicts are committed to the local repo like everything else, commits with conflicts are noisily warned about and you can fix them whenever instead of having no other option than immediately.

How does your repo work with conflicts? How does it compile?

To the sibling comment that is too deep to reply to, this covers why delayed conflict resolution is advantageous: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45084835

It’s for other branches that hang off the commit that introduced the conflicts.

The edited commit, assuming it doesn’t have conflicts with predecessors, builds just fine. Successor commits with conflicts that you just introduced predictably don’t - but you aren’t editing them, so it isn’t a problem. In fact, that’s exactly why this feature is so compelling.

Jj edit isn't even the jj way of doing things. Should be jj new. Unless you have changes stacked after then you'd do jj new -A. And squish when you're done

You have this commit graph

    B --> X --> Y (main) --> Z --> @
     \
      --> G --> H

B is a base; yesterday the name "main" pointed to it, and today "main" points to Y. Z is a commit you wrote that you haven't published yet. "@" means "Working copy", which is a way of saying "what your filesystem looks like." So, at this time, you see the changes from B, X, Y, Z, but not G or H.

You want to rebase G --> H from B to Y. But unfortunately, G conflicts with X. H does not conflict with anything. When you run this rebase in Git, you will actually have to immediately fix the conflict between G and X in order for the rebase to continue. If you do not solve it right then, the entire rebase fails. Git's rebase is actually an algorithm represented by a state machine; you must solve the conflict to proceed from "conflicted state" and `git rebase --continue` the rebase algorithm. (If you imagine what you would need to do to actually implement 'git rebase' as it works today in your own code, this state machine model makes immediate sense.)

In Jujutsu, rebase is a non-stop operation and it always succeeds. There is no state machine. It will update the commit graph to look like this:

    B --> X --> Y (main) --> Z --> @
                 \
                   --> G --> H
                       C     C

Now G and H are marked as "conflicted". If any commit is marked as conflicted, then all (transitive) children are marked as conflicted, too. If you "switch over" to working on G, then you can solve the conflict and commit the solution. That will solve the conflict in G, and also H as well.

But you don't have to do anything. In the above graph, G and H are conflicted, but because they are not a parent of `@`, then it does not matter. They exist in a parallel universe that does not influence your own. You can keep compiling code as usual. If you "switched over" to G, then the conflict is "materialized" in your working copy (filesystem) by putting conflict markers in the files, and so you have to solve it to keep compiling.

In short, Jujutsu separates conflict computation (do patches X,Y have a conflict?) from conflict materialization (make the conflict appear with markers in a file), and materialization of conflicts is "lazy" -- it only happens if a conflict exists transitively in the history of your working copy. Resolution is then done at your leisure.

A more brainiac way of thinking about it is that Jujutsu is a tool for manipulating _commit graphs_, and that is a purely computational notion; adding edges, removing edges, etc are all just basic algorithms. The graph's nodes contain "content" and states like "conflicts" are just defined as a relationship C(X,Y) on nodes in the graph. But all of this is "purely computational." Imagine implementing Jujutsu's rebase command; it is just a trivial reparenting of some graph nodes, something an amateur programmer could do. Calculating the relationship `C` is a bit more involved, but not complete black magic. But none of this involves "reading files from disk" or whatever. The side effect of "update the files on your filesystem to look like state XYZ in the graph" is just that: a side effect that the tool does when it is needed. Git, in contrast, only works through "side effects" in that it tends to only operate on the working copy, and never the "holistic commit graph". And so Jujutsu works at a higher, more "pure" level.

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Fun fact: in some cases, you do not actually have to "switch over" to G in order to solve this conflict, either. It is actually possible to craft a "solution" to the conflict in G while on top of Z. Then you can do `jj squash --from @ --into G` and you can "teleport" the resolution into the conflicted commit, solving both G and H, without ever making it appear in the working copy. This happens in cases like "G modified a file named readme.txt that was deleted by commit X"; all you have to do is "re-delete" the file inside commit G and it is trivially solved. This is something that is, quite literally, impossible to do in Git.

As a relatively new jj user, I'm curious. Why is the jj new -A + squash better than just a jj edit?

Separation of concerns and performance; when you edit, the commit in the middle of the branch is your working copy and you’ll update the whole branch unnecessarily many times vs just once when you’re on a logical checkpoint.

You can use all the git commands while doing a rebase.

When you want to work on an older commit for a longer time and don't want to stay in a rebase, you just check it out and work normally, when you are done and want to propagate your changes, then you do a single rebase.

Thanks, for the long explanation.

[G: original, G' with conflicts, G" resolved]

What value do you get from G' and H' existing with conflicts when you can't use the working tree until after you have resolved the conflicts?

So in Git it would be G -> G", but in JJ you can do G -> G' -> G". But G" in both cases only exist, until after you have put in the work of solving the conflict. And G' only ever exists without a usable working tree. So what do you get from having G' earlier, when you still have G" only after the same work?

I’m reminded of the Dropbox comment.

You can do anything with a Turing machine. That you can isn’t the point. The point is the tool does all the things you can automatically and correctly so you don’t have to. There’s no ’just do this or that during rebase, or outside of it’. There’s only ‘it rebased everything correctly without a single thought, nice’.

SSH is definitely easier than Dropbox :-).

Yes, and my point is that having a rebase and edit everything isn't too different from first modifying everything and then doing an automatic rebase.

I forget where I read it (maybe from Martin), but one reason I like to `jj new` before I start any work is just because it makes it easy to revert or abandon if I don't end up liking it. And also easy to diff. `jj new` is pretty much 'free' anyway, every time you make an edit you're creating new commits (not changes!) anyway.

Sorry if I’m being dense, but I still don’t get how this is any different. If I interactive rebase and stop to edit a commit, isn’t that the same thing?

To expand on this(since I asked the question), I see mostly downside as the branch with G is unusable until the conflicts are resolved. Being able to keep a merge halfway resolved is a nice CLI shortcut. There should be a stash command for this, and I expect there probably is, or it can be done with work trees.

Not everyone works by “logical checkpoint” commit strategy. I myself want my tree clean and commits being atomic state transitions. Otherwise git bisect (which I rely on) would break.

A lot of the jj strategies in this thread are a bit more cowboy, and I’m surprised.

Oh I'm good with jj new for any new thing I'm working on. But I was wondering why one would use jj new -A to fix a commit in the past vs jj edit,

Mostly to keep the new changes isolated from the original commit until they're ready, I think. The only time I use `jj edit` is to resume a leaf I left in the middle of something (where I might have used `git stash pop` but without needing to stash).

You have to finish the rebase before git will let you move in to other work. jj will not. With git you can stop in the middle to make changes, but you must continue until the rebase is done.

The key is to be cowboy until you’re happy with things, and then get clean, just like with git. It’s way easier to slice and dice commits with jj and so you can be sloppy at first and it’s easy to turn beautiful afterward.

My personal opinion: `jj new` is better because it's non-modal. If you use `jj edit`, you're sort of switching to "edit mode": any change you make will trigger a rebase of all descendants.[1] You're live-mutating the core graph structure rather than a harmless appendage node. Also, if you notice something else that needs to be fixed, you can do it but then you'll need to remember to split it out into a separate commit before leaving edit mode.

With `jj new` + `jj squash`[2], you're collecting work that you can review as a separate thing anytime as you go along. You don't have to remember anything. If you throw in an unrelated change, you'll notice it if you review the changes before squashing them, so you can split it out then. And I'm pretty much always working in this state even when I'm at the top of my branch, so `jj new some-deep-node` doesn't really change anything. If I get called away and have no memory of what I was doing when I return, it doesn't matter: my jj state tells me exactly where things are and what I was doing.

[1] Which is not a huge problem, you have deferred conflict resolution so if something goes wrong you can probably just repair it with normal editing or your editor's undo functionality.

[2] I don't usually bother with `jj new -A`, since I'm going to squash my "out of line" temporary commit into the linear chain anyway. `jj new -A` is more similar to `jj edit` than `jj new` -- it shares some but not all of the modal disadvantages. So perhaps my answer to your actual question is: "yeah, I dunno either."

I had been wondering for quite some time what people meant when they said "you can resolve conflicts later". Thanks so much for this excellent explanation!

Indeed, that was my point. jj new -A would also trigger rebases.

Ok. There are simple workarounds. I git rebase —quit and then make a branch for this saved rebase progress to return to later. I then restart the rebase from the corresponding commit. It would be much nicer if this was all wrapped up a simple command.

There is value here, but I think it is more like “add a new command consisting of 50-100 lines of code” not “write an entirely new VCS.”

That’s not how I use git, at all. I have a messy workspace with a lot of things going on simultaneously, and only selectively stage when something crosses the finish line. Sounds very difficult to do this in jj.

Selectively staging is easier in jj. I loved git’s index, jj does it better.

One little thing here, one little thing there, it all adds up. The jj model is more orthogonal, and so ends up being easier, which also translates to more power.

You can work exactly this way using the “gitpatch” diff editor[1].

1. Your working copy contains whatever mish-mash of changes you want.

2. When you’re ready to stage and commit these changes, run `jj commit --tool gitpatch`

3. The iterative “stage this hunk?” UI from git lets you choose what to commit.

4. Your editor opens for a commit message.

5. The changes you selected are now in a new parent commit of your working copy, and the remaining changes are left in the working copy commit.

In addition to the _same_ workflow, jj makes it easier to have other workflows as well (you may be interested in the megamerge workflow if you’re always working on multiple tasks at once).

[1]: https://zerowidth.com/2025/jj-tips-and-tricks/#hunk-wise-sty...

The branch is indeed unusable, as opposed to the whole repository being unusable - it's a very nice upside actually.

How? The jj documentation seems to be pretty clear about getting rid of the staging area.

staging isn't needed since everything including the working copy is a commit you can split, rebase, etc. without any checkin step. yes, it does make sense and yes, it works in practice - the uncommitted vs staged vs committed states are very git-specific and don't need to be special in any way. if you check in the wrong thing (note - your working copy is a commit, so by definition you can't not have wrong things checked in at times) you split it (stage and/or commit in git).

> Sounds very difficult to do this in jj.

Pretty easy. While inaccurate, it's useful to think of jj as two separate repositories. One is the "clean" one that has everything nice and neat. The other is a repository of all your (very) incremental changes.

You have to actively decide what goes in the "clean" one. jj automatically puts stuff in the messy one. Any time you actively commit something, you're committing to the clean one. So you decide what goes in there.

When you do a push, only the "clean" commits are pushed.

There are a couple main ways to achieve a workflow similar to Git's staging area.

#1: Squashing

Create a revision for the feature, then create another revision atop that.

  $ jj new main -m 'feature'
  $ jj new
  $ jj
  @  trtpzvno samfredrickson@gmail.com 2025-09-01 12:32:33 9ac76a0f
  │  (empty) (no description set)
  ○  wvzltyyr samfredrickson@gmail.com 2025-09-01 12:32:31 80b2d5d0
  │  (empty) feature
  ◆  zxrulorx samfredrickson@gmail.com 2024-12-11 03:44:38 main 351a2b30
  │  all the stuff
  $ vim
  $ jj
  @  trtpzvno samfredrickson@gmail.com 2025-09-01 12:34:50 5516c2b9
  │  (no description set)
  ○  wvzltyyr samfredrickson@gmail.com 2025-09-01 12:32:31 80b2d5d0
  │  (empty) feature
  ◆  zxrulorx samfredrickson@gmail.com 2024-12-11 03:44:38 main 351a2b30
  │  all the stuff
  ~
  $ jj squash -i
  # interactively choose hunks to squash into parent
  $ jj
  @  oxqnumku samfredrickson@gmail.com 2025-09-01 12:35:48 8694aa34
  │  (empty) (no description set)
  ○  wvzltyyr samfredrickson@gmail.com 2025-09-01 12:35:48 47110bff
  │  feature
  ◆  zxrulorx samfredrickson@gmail.com 2024-12-11 03:44:38 main 351a2b30
  │  all the stuff
  ~

#2: Splitting

Create a revision for the feature, then split it up retroactively.

  $ jj new main -m 'feature'
  $ jj
  @  snomlyny samfredrickson@gmail.com 2025-09-01 12:38:39 84c6ecaa
  │  (empty) feature
  ◆  zxrulorx samfredrickson@gmail.com 2024-12-11 03:44:38 main 351a2b30
  │  all the stuff
  ~
  $ vim
  $ jj
  @  snomlyny samfredrickson@gmail.com 2025-09-01 12:39:51 8038bdd4
  │  feature
  ◆  zxrulorx samfredrickson@gmail.com 2024-12-11 03:44:38 main 351a2b30
  │  all the stuff
  ~
  $ jj split
  # interactively choose hunks to keep, splitting the rest into a new revision
  $ jj
  @  zpnpvvzl samfredrickson@gmail.com 2025-09-01 12:41:47 5656f1c5
  │  debugging junk
  ○  snomlyny samfredrickson@gmail.com 2025-09-01 12:41:44 1d17740b
  │  feature
  ◆  zxrulorx samfredrickson@gmail.com 2024-12-11 03:44:38 main 351a2b30
  │  all the stuff
  ~

Because it’s not a distinct feature, it’s just another commit. Which means you can bring all of the usual tools for modifying commits to bear. My sibling has some details, but at the high level, that’s the idea.

Making a local worktree/shallow clone is dirt cheap, if you're worried about `git rebase` not storing its state in a restartable fashion.

jj's handling of merge conflicts is pretty much like in Git committing the conflict markers in git and editing the commit message to say "conflicting".

Heh, sorry. The `-A` part went whooshing over my head until I had already written up the rest. I just saw `jj new` and got triggered into a "well akshually..."