What's this about?
Git-knife is a Show HN tool that lets you edit git commit messages, authors, and dates in a spreadsheet-style interface, instead of wrestling with interactive rebase commands.
What exactly is "rewriting git history"?
Git records every code change as a commit with a message, author, and timestamp. Sometimes you need to fix those after the fact — correct a typo'd message, fix a wrong email, tidy timestamps. Normally that means `git rebase -i`, a famously fiddly text-based ritual. Git-knife turns it into rows and cells you edit directly.
Why it matters
It's a small quality-of-life win, but it taps a real developer pain point — and the strong HN response shows how much people dislike the current rebase workflow.