The `-x` argument to cherry-pick helps a little bit with traceability. It adds a line to the commit message that refers back to the original commit by its SHA.

The `-x` argument to cherry-pick helps a little bit with traceability. It adds a line to the commit message that refers back to the original commit by its SHA. If you decide that the way things were done way back when on the release branch isn't quite how you want to proceed in the future, you just amend the message to reflect the additional changes. The SHA is still there to reach back and see how things were done in the first place.