The obtuse part about github's linear view isn't that it's linear, it's that it's interleaved by time in ways that form a chaotic view even for a linear one. Li

The obtuse part about github's linear view isn't that it's linear, it's that it's interleaved by time in ways that form a chaotic view even for a linear one. Like, picking a random large project for an example, take a look at swift's history on github[1]. Because there's a bunch of PRs that were being operated on in parallel, and some probably that are even kind of old, the view you wind up with is likely a large streak of "PR merged" commits and then all the commits from those PRs jumbled together in an incoherent mess. Likely you'd have to scroll a few pages to even find some of those PR's commits (Note: git-log also has this as its default order, but you have some choices like --topo-order). That said, I really really recommend you look at git's native --first-parent output, as I mentioned. That is likely the linear history you really want and it's right there in the client. It's the exact same thing as you get from a squashing strategy, except the history isn't gone it's just hidden. I agree that the interactive tree views are chaotic and incoherent in their own ways. I don't use them either. I use --first-parent usually to find what I want and then I might dig in deeper if I need to. But leaving that history there underneath means tools like git bisect can actually work, or if you need to narrow down onto a small change you actually can. [1] https://github.com/apple/swift/commits/main https://github.com/apple/swift/commits/main