Sync fork with upstream via rebase, not merge

[tony-sol]

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Is there a way to sync my fork with upstream from UI via rebase, but not a merge?
It would be a super awesome to have an option for this action

[tuves]

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[al20878]

In the "Open a pull request" page, click on the "Edit" button next to the "Merge" button.

There's no "Merge" button, nor the "Edit" button next to it, on that page... There's only the "Create pull request" button under the input box for the PR detailed description. The button has a down arrow allowing to select "Create pull request" (checked by default) or "Create draft pull request". Looks like there's a step (or two) missing in the above details...

[Thaina]

At Sync Fork/Update Branch still use merge. Please add option there because now it become very confusing and frustrating

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[Thaina]

Is it really too hard or impossible?

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[walid-khalafi]

Right now, GitHub’s “Sync fork” button in the web UI only supports a merge update from upstream — there’s no built‑in option to rebase via the UI. If you want a rebase (to keep a linear history), you’ll need to do it locally and then push the result back to your fork.

Here’s how to rebase your fork onto upstream from the command line:

1. Add the upstream remote (only once)

git remote add upstream https://github.com/ORIGINAL_OWNER/ORIGINAL_REPO.git

2. Fetch the latest changes from upstream

git fetch upstream

3. Switch to your main branch

git checkout main

4. Rebase your branch onto upstream/main

git rebase upstream/main

5. Push the rebased branch to your fork

git push --force-with-lease origin main

Notes:

Replace main with your default branch name if it’s different.

--force-with-lease is safer than --force because it won’t overwrite others’ work.

If you prefer not to rewrite history, stick with the UI’s merge option instead.

Alternative: If you use the GitHub CLI, you can run:

gh repo sync --force --branch main

…but even here, rebase isn’t the default — you’d still need to handle it manually.

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