My opinion is that the time for clean commits is the merge commits created by PRs. Git uses a two dimensional commit data structure and most git commands today

My opinion is that the time for clean commits is the merge commits created by PRs. Git uses a two dimensional commit data structure and most git commands today take a --first-parent argument that gives you a smart, clean view of just the merge commits. It's only a bit of config work to make those your default aliases, and I just wish more UI tools defaulted to something more like it. I don't necessarily care how "messy" the commits inside a PR are at that point if my default view is at the merge commit/PR level. Teaching your coworkers how to use --first-parent may be beneficial to everyone and less stress than worrying about the peer pressure to conform to smaller "cleaner" commits. That said, making cleaner commits is sometimes a useful skillset to learn for yourself. Sure, it can make code reviews easier, but it's advanced skills that take practice and most PR tools aren't particularly good at reviewing a commit at a time anyway so most PR reviews are entire PR at a time. I use tools like git add -p and git rebase --interactive as I feel necessary to clean up a commit narrative, but I also have a strong understanding of when not to force push and have years of "training" in these commands. I don't expect and don't want to expect junior devs to use them. I'm happy with the --first-parent approach to the DAG. I'm also always happy to teach junior devs how to use git add -p and git rebase --interactive, but when it is for them, when it is they who want to improve their skills. A semi-related thing here is that the other way to remove a lot of "fix misspellings and whitespace" commits is to automate them away. Standardized formatters like prettier remove most of the manual effort of whitespace management. They can be setup to format on save in editors like VS Code. They can be added to pre-commit hooks. Similarly, many misspelling problems (certainly not all) get automated away with type systems and linters.