Why restacking matters

In a stack, each branch is based on its parent. When you modify a parent branch (amend a commit, add new commits, or pull upstream changes), its children become out of sync — they're based on an old version of the parent. Restacking rebases each branch onto the current tip of its parent, restoring consistency.

gs stack restack

Ensure each branch in the current stack is based on its parent, rebasing if necessary.

# Restack current branch and all its children
gs stack restack
 
# Short aliases
gs stack r
gs stack fix
gs stack f

What it does:

Checks if the current branch needs rebasing onto its parent
Performs the rebase if the parent has moved forward
Recursively restacks all children branches
Handles conflicts interactively (prompts you to resolve and continue)

When to use:

After making changes to a parent branch
When trunk has moved forward and you want to update your stack
To fix "out of sync" branches in your stack

Aliases: r, fix, f

gs sync

Fetch remote changes, clean up stale branches, delete merged branches, and restack.

# Interactive cleanup
gs sync
 
# Force cleanup without prompts
gs sync -f

What it does:

Removes metadata for branches that no longer exist in git
Validates trunk branch has no parent
Detects cycles in branch relationships
Ensures stack structure is valid