Comment by avaq

Imagine a feature in git, where when you merge, you get a single new commit on the main branch like you want, where the message could describe the changes in summary, like you want. But also: the commit contains a reference to the source branch so you can easily find it back, break it down, bisect into it, all without having to leave git or rely on data stored at 3d parties. That would be pretty neat! It's like, the best of both worlds, but all inside git!

Well. That's what a merge commit is.

Your approach is nearly identical to creating a merge commit, except the pointer to the second parent (the "original branch") is indirectly recorded via the PR link, instead of directly inside git.

If you create merge commits, then you have your "clean main branch" (via git log --first-parent), as well as the extended history with all the source commits (via git log). And as a bonus, merge commits are supported by every git host, and they work the same in all of them.

I think the whole "squash merge vs merge commit" discussions would be a lot less prevalent if --first-parent would be how git and git hosts displayed commit histories by default. :(