Git Rejected Your Push. Preserve Both Histories Before Choosing the Fix.

A rejected push can feel like Git refusing to save work that is already finished. You have recorded three local commits, the changes are ready, and the shared repository won't accept the update. A force option starts to look like the command that will let everyone move on.

This article concerns a non-fast-forward rejection caused by diverging histories, not every push error. Authentication failures, network problems, and protected-branch restrictions need their own diagnosis. In the constructed case here, a reviewer added a fix to the remote branch while you were working. Your local branch doesn't yet include it. [1][4]

Your changes have not disappeared. Neither has the reviewer's fix. The job is to bring the two paths together without accidentally replacing work somebody else already shared.

See the divergence before choosing the operation

A normal fast-forward update advances the remote branch while retaining its existing history. Here, both sides continued separately from the last shared commit:

       L1 -- L2 -- L3    local work
      /
A
      \
       R                 fetched remote fix

A is the shared starting point. L1, L2, and L3 are your local commits; R is the reviewer's contribution. Moving the remote branch straight to L3 would not retain R in that branch's ancestry. The rejection gives you a chance to inspect that difference before replacing it. [3][4]

First protect any uncommitted working-tree or staged content through an appropriate recoverable checkpoint. Then obtain a current view of the intended remote branch and inspect which commits exist only on each side. The comparison should concern the actual branch you intend to update, not a remote-tracking reference that hasn't been refreshed since before the reviewer's fix.

Merge keeps the existing paths

A merge can combine R with the local work while preserving the existing commits. Where a merge commit is needed, the resulting history explicitly records their integration.

The important work is more than clearing conflict markers. R might correct behavior that the local feature also changes. A syntactically clean merge can still lose the intent of that fix, so the final diff and relevant tests should demonstrate that both contributions survived.

If the remote has not advanced incompatibly during the integration, the combined history can normally be pushed through the ordinary route. The update now includes the remote work instead of asking the server to abandon it. [4]

Unpublished local work can be rebased without a force push

Rebase offers another route when the three local commits have never been shared and the team's conventions permit it. Replaying them on top of the fetched remote fix produces new commit identities:

A -- R -- L1' -- L2' -- L3'

R is now an ancestor of the new local tip. If the remote still points to R, it can advance normally to L3'. Rebasing unpublished local commits onto the current remote tip does not inherently require a force push. [2][4]

The distinction is what was rewritten. In this example, only unshared local commits acquired new identities. Replacing commits already published on a remote creates a different collaboration problem because other people may depend on the old identities.

A second rejection after either integration can mean the remote changed again. Inspect the new work rather than treating repeated rejection as permission to overwrite an unknown contribution.

A lease is a safeguard, not authorization to rewrite

A lease-based force update checks an expected remote state before replacing it. That is valuable protection against some unexpected changes, but it doesn't decide whether rewriting shared history is appropriate or coordinate everyone affected. Branch protections and the team's agreement still govern what is allowed. [1][4]

An explicit expected state and a recoverable reference are particularly important before a consequential rewrite. A safer force option is not a substitute for understanding which shared commits would be replaced.

Choose the history your team can maintain

Merge and rebase are not rival ways to make the error message disappear. They offer different histories, with different effects on commit identity and collaboration.

For this case, both routes can preserve the reviewer's fix and your intended changes when carried out appropriately. The team's history convention and whether your work has already been shared help determine the better fit. The final result still needs to behave correctly; an accepted push alone doesn't establish that the integration preserved both intentions.

The rejection wasn't evidence that Git had lost your work. It was evidence that the shared story had changed while you were adding to it. Understanding that change lets you choose an integration rather than use a more powerful command to silence a useful warning.