Enabling rerere replays a recorded conflict resolution into a file Git still marks unmerged

The stop is the point of the whole feature. On the rebase, Git prints `Resolved 'config.yml' using previous resolution.` and then leaves the path at `UU` in `git status --short` ^[5]. Old answer in the working tree, unmerged in the index. By default rerere writes the resolution and waits for you to inspect it ^[7]. The line to inspect is in the combined diff: `++timeout: 5000`, sitting under the two sides it displaced, `- timeout: 10000` and `-timeout: 500` ^[6].

The saving on a single commit is small; repeated hunks are the reason to turn this on. The walkthrough's example is a ten-commit branch where three commits hit the same hunk, which gives three replays, each a `git diff` and a `git add` instead of a fresh decision ^[8]. The `timeout` value is decided once and checked three times, so three of the four encounters with that hunk are inspections ^[9].

`rerere.autoupdate true` adds one more line to the transcript, `Staged 'config.yml' using previous resolution.`, and `--continue` then proceeds without a manual `add` ^[10]. The rebase still halts, because rerere never continues an operation on its own ^[11]. I would not want that configurable. What autoupdate costs you is the `git add` that used to be the moment you read the diff, and the author of the dev.to walkthrough says to leave it off until you have watched a replay in a repository you know ^[12].

Reversing a recorded decision takes two commands. `git rerere forget config.yml` drops the recorded resolution, and `git checkout --conflict=merge config.yml` puts the markers back, reporting `Recreated 1 merge conflict` with `ours` at `timeout: 10000` and `theirs` at `timeout: 500` ^[13]. Note `forget`, not `clear`; the author lists confusing the two as one of the common mistakes ^[21].

Matching is byte-for-byte on the conflict rerere saw ^[14]. Add a commit on `main` that also touches `retries`, merge again, and there is no replay at all: a plain `CONFLICT` and a new `Recorded preimage` ^[15]. The failure that costs you runs the other way. The conflicted lines can be identical while the right answer has moved, since the cache matches those lines and not the surrounding file or the tests ^[16]. The walkthrough pairs the `++` read with `grep -nE '^(<<<<<<<|=======|>>>>>>>)'` before every `--continue` ^[17].

Two adoption details sit in the setup. The config line is written without `--global`, deliberately, so the first repository you try it in is a repository you chose ^[18]. And the cache is per-clone ^[19]. The transcripts above come from a disposable repository on git 2.43.0 ^[2]. The author's own precondition is the one I would keep: rerere pays off once resolving a conflict by hand is already routine ^[20].