gh-qstack - GitHub cli Quick STACK

Love the gh stack CLI but want to be quick? gh-qstack to the rescue for a single command gh qstack that:

• initializes a GitHub Stack
• automatically picks a branch name
• checks out that branch in the stack
• adds all changes
• commits them given your message, which also becomes the PR title
• pushes
• starts submit GH PR flow

Now when you want to go back to an existing layer to update something? gh qstack fixup

• adds all changes
• uses git history fixup to update the current commit and upstream branches
• pushes all updated branches

A few lines of sh is all you need: gh-qstack

master $ vim work.rb
layer1 $ gh qstack "Layer 1 that kicks off a stack"

layer1 $ vim more_work.rb 
layer1 $ gh qstack "Layer 2 that adds on more work"

layer2 $ vim even_more_work.rb
layer2 $ gh qstack "Layer 3 with even more work"

# now some PR comments come in on PR1 
layer3 $ gh stack bottom
layer1 $ vim work.rb # addressing comments
layer1 $ gh qstack fixup

layer1 $ gh stack top # now back to where I was working earlier
layer3 $ vim even_more_work.rb

Commands

1. gh qstack "message" for adding a new layer with the init, branch name, checkout, add, commit, push, and submit.
2. gh qstack f or gh qstack fixup for modifying an existing layer and fixing things up the stack based on the recent git history fixup. Note, this needs git version 2.55 or later.
3. gh qstack --help for getting help text on commands and their flag

There's also flags if you want to skip submitting and pushing

• --no-submit - will not run gh stack submit on gh qstack
• --no-push - will not run gh stack push on gh qstack and gh qstack fixup. Note: Since push is disabled, submit won't be run either

If you want to save even more keystrokes, try out these aliases

$ gh alias set qs 'qstack'
$ gh alias set qsf 'qstack fixup'

Install

Quite similar to other gh CLI extensions:

$ gh extension install harsh183/gh-qstack

Whenever there's an update, gh cli will tell you automatically after using qstack:

A new release of qstack is available: 8603e16354eacd7ca77aa658b113bcc80a8dbe6d → 08d6f3689d3793e0cb8727da96947947af651102
To upgrade, run: gh extension upgrade qstack

Requirements

1. gh cli as recent as you can. The gh-stack official docs say it should be v2+
2. git as recent as can if you want the gh qstack fixup command to work since git history fixup was introduced recently in v2.55 where it's still experimental and it will get fixes over time. A lot of system git versions are actually fairly old, so make sure to upgrade. If you don't want fixup, an older git version should probably work.

Example with output

Based off dog-fooding this very project:

1. When there's no stack because you are on your default trunk branch, here main. Run gh qstack "message":

~/E/gh-qstack (main|●1✚1) $ vim gh-qstack
~/E/gh-qstack (main|●1✚1) $ gh qstack "V1 of the script"
✓ Created stack: main ← quick/20260827100519
  You're on quick/20260827100519 (top of stack).

What's next:
  • commit your work as usual, then add a layer:  gh stack add
  • see your stack any time:                      gh stack view
  • when ready to open PRs:                       gh stack submit
[quick/20260827100519 492c191] V1 of the script
 1 file changed, 44 insertions(+)
 create mode 100755 gh-qstack
Pushing 1 branch to origin...
✓ Pushed 1 branches
To create PRs for this stack, run `gh stack submit`
Checking stack state...
Pushing to origin...
✓ Created PR #1 for quick/20260827100519
✓ Pushed and synced 1 branches
~/E/gh-qstack (quick/20260827100519|✔) $

This made PR 1

Note: The first branch prefix changed as I went along this example, but it works basically the same.

2. Now do some more changes, then it's simply gh-qstack again. Here we're also showing the --no-submit param in case you don't want to make a PR right away.

~/E/gh-qstack (quick/20260827100519|✔) $ vim gh-qstack
~/E/gh-qstack (quick/20260827100519|✚1) $ gh qstack "Change Default Branch Name" --no-submit
✓ Created branch 08-27-change_default_branch_name (layer 2) with commit 64bdefd8ee55b4962159d97f3820a07deae211df
Pushing 2 branches to origin...
✓ Pushed 2 branches
To create PRs for this stack, run `gh stack submit`
~/E/gh-qstack (08-27-change_default_branch_name|✔) $

3. Wait, I want to change something in a given layer. Lets use the fixup flow using gh qstack f

~/E/gh-qstack (08-27-change_default_branch_name|✔) $ vim gh-qstack
~/E/gh-qstack (08-27-change_default_branch_name|✚1) $ gh qstack f
Pushing 2 branches to origin...
✓ Pushed 2 branches
To create PRs for this stack, run `gh stack submit`

4. Going on, adding yet another layer where I'll submit my current and previous PR.

~/E/gh-qstack (08-27-change_default_branch_name|✚1) $ gh qs "Flesh out README"
✓ Created branch 08-27-flesh_out_readme (layer 3) with commit 39edf804a703f1d83793caa7496b48a32b9a33a9
Pushing 3 branches to origin...
✓ Pushed 3 branches
To create PRs for this stack, run `gh stack submit`
Checking stack state...
Pushing to origin...
PR #1 for quick/20260827100519 is up to date
✓ Created PR #2 for 08-27-change_default_branch_name
✓ Created PR #3 for 08-27-flesh_out_readme
✓ Stack created on GitHub with 3 PRs (stack #4)
✓ Pushed and synced 3 branches
~/E/gh-qstack (08-27-flesh_out_readme|✚1) $

This made PR2 and PR3

5. Actually I want to go back and change the default branch again. Let's do that

~/E/gh-qstack (08-27-flesh_out_readme|✔) $ gs down
✓ Checked out 08-27-change_default_branch_name, 1 branch down
~/E/gh-qstack (08-27-change_default_branch_name|✔) $ vim gh-qstack
~/E/gh-qstack (08-27-change_default_branch_name|✚1) $ gh qsf
Pushing 3 branches to origin...
✓ Pushed 3 branches
Run `gh stack view` to see your stack of PRs

Now this updated PR2, and you can actually see the result of the force push in the PR page with the diff

6. Okay now I want to add everything I just did and wrap up this README

~/E/gh-qstack (08-27-flesh_out_readme|✚2) $ gh qs "Finish README" --no-push
✓ Created branch 08-27-finish_readme (layer 4) with commit 0575e77aaf6fbc72eeb896f7c7bb07adff375c67
~/E/gh-qstack (08-27-finish_readme|✔) $ gs submit
Checking stack state...
Pushing to origin...
PR #1 for quick/20260827100519 is up to date
PR #2 for 08-27-change_default_branch_name is up to date
PR #3 for 08-27-flesh_out_readme is up to date
✓ Created PR #5 for 08-27-finish_readme
✓ Stack updated on GitHub with 4 PRs (stack #4)
✓ Pushed and synced 4 branches
~/E/gh-qstack (08-27-finish_readme|✔) $

This made PR4

here's what your stack looks like after more dogfooding in the UI

Why This Exists

Now gh stack has a Abbreviated workflow that uses gs add -Am "commit message" that covers branch name, checkout, add, commit. I've had a good time using it, and I suggest starting with that. But I was missing

• having a similar flow on gs init
• pushing and making a PR right away

I had achieved similar UX with my earlier project gh-chain which had a similar flow before GitHub's official stacking feature was available.