Jared interviews Steve Klabnik (Rust author and longtime OSS contributor) about JJ (Jujutsu), a newer version control system that can operate on Git repos via pluggable backends so you can adopt it locally without forcing teammates to switch, while getting a simpler, more flexible workflow. Steve explains JJ’s core shift: no staging/index—your working copy is effectively a mutable commit you shape as you work, making it easier to split, squash, and rewrite history without juggling Git’s extra layers and flags, and even “stash” becomes just more visible commits. He highlights JJ’s stable change IDs (so you can refer to work even as hashes change), its conflict model where rebases complete immediately and mark conflicted commits for later resolution (great for many parallel branches), and features like jj absorb (auto-placing review fixes into the right earlier commits) and jj undo (a full operation history that makes experimentation feel safe). Steve also teases work on a JJ-native collaboration/review product inspired by Gerrit-style patch workflows.

Links:

Jujutsu (jj) on GitHub

Jujutsu docs

Steve’s Jujutsu tutorial

“I see a future in jj” (Steve Klabnik)

East River Source Control (ERSC)

jj CLI reference

jj absorb

jj undo

Working with Gerrit (jj docs)

Git commit “trailers” / metadata

Git hooks

Git LFS

Perforce Helix Core

Sapling SCM

Mercurial

GitButler

The Rust Programming Language (“The Book”)

Steve Klabnik’s site

why the lucky stiff (Wikipedia)

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