Comment by gen220

FWIW, stacking is "just a tool" that you can use to make whatever sort of workflow you want. I agree creating alt PRs isn't a high-value usage of the tools.

The //actually better// workflows stacking enables are the same sort of workflows that `git add -p`, `git commit --fixup` and `git rebase` enable, just at a higher level of abstraction (PRs vs commits).

You can "merge as a stack" as you imply, but you can also merge in sub-chunks, or make a base 2-3 PRs in a stack that 4 other stacks build on top of. It allows you to confidently author the N+1th piece of work that you'd normally "defer" doing until after everything up to N has been reviewed.

An example: I add a feature flag, implement a divergent behavior behind a feature flag gate, delete the feature flag and remove the old behavior. I can do this in one "stack", in which I deploy the first two today and the last one next week.

I don't have to "come back" to this part of the codebase a week from now to implement removing the flag, I can just merge the last PR that I wrote while I had full context on this corner.

In theory you can do all of this stuff with vanilla git and GitHub. In non-stacking orgs, I'd regularly be the only person doing this, because I was the only one comfortable enough with git (and stacking) for it to not be toooo big a burden to my workflow. Graphite (and other stacking tools) make this workflow more accessible and intuitive to people, which is a big net win for reviewers imo.