🧩 Resolving Complex Git Merge Conflicts Locally

⚠️ Problem

When merging a pull request on GitHub, you may encounter:

"These conflicts are too complex to resolve in the web editor."

This usually means:

• Large structural differences in files
• Binary file conflicts
• Changes scattered across a file
• Multiple developers editing the same areas

🛠️ Solution: Use Git Locally to Resolve

✅ Step 1: Clone the Repository (if not done already)

git clone https://github.com/your-username/your-repo.git
cd your-repo

🔁 Step 2: Checkout the Base Branch (e.g., main)

git checkout main
git pull origin main

🔀 Step 3: Merge the Source Branch (e.g., feature-branch)

git merge feature-branch

If there are conflicts, Git will output which files are conflicting.

🧹 Step 4: Resolve Conflicts Manually

Open the conflicted files in your editor. You'll see conflict markers like this:

<<<<<<< HEAD
// Your changes in main branch
=======
 // Their changes from feature-branch
>>>>>>> feature-branch

📝 Manually edit the file to keep the correct/combined version.

Then save the file.

✅ Step 5: Mark the File as Resolved

git add path/to/conflicted-file

Do this for each conflicted file you resolve.

💾 Step 6: Commit the Merge

git commit

Git will open the default merge message. You can leave it as-is or edit it.

🚀 Step 7: Push the Changes to GitHub

git push origin main

Now the PR should be marked as merged (or you can close the PR if you’ve pushed directly to main).

🧰 Tips

• Use git status to see unresolved files.

• Use GUI tools like VS Code, Sourcetree, or GitKraken if you prefer visual merge tools.

• For large repos, make a backup branch before merging:

  git checkout -b backup-main-before-merge