How to totally delete the last two commits from GitHub from a specific branch

Question

Please, before closing as duplicated question, take in account I am trying to follow some recommendations found around.

I have two branches and I don't want to create a new branch at all: master and develop in my company. I don't want to revert because it will keep the history as far as I understand (git reset --soft mylast-good-commit). I really don't want to touch on master. Lets say my last two commits in develop I did something very ugly and I would like to delete them completetely from github.

My last commit: 50021514 (I want to delete from github including the history)

My second last commit: 0b63ca64 (I want to delete from github including the history)

My third commit: 571ebdfa (I want this to be the head from now on)

Tentatives:

1)

C:\dev\my-app>git rebase -p --onto 571ebdfa

result in

pick 0b63ca6 bower dependency versions reseted  to fd042953
pick 4cce2c4 revert "bower dependency versions reseted"

# Rebase 571ebdf..4cce2c4 onto 571ebdf (2 commands)
#
# Commands:
# p, pick = use commit
# r, reword = use commit, but edit the commit message
# e, edit = use commit, but stop for amending
# s, squash = use commit, but meld into previous commit
# f, fixup = like "squash", but discard this commit's log message
# x, exec = run command (the rest of the line) using shell
# d, drop = remove commit
#
# These lines can be re-ordered; they are executed from top to bottom.
#

then I typed :wq and I got

interactive rebase in progress; onto 571ebdf
Last command done (1 command done):
   pick 0b63ca6 bower dependency versions reseted  to fd042953
Next command to do (1 remaining command):
   pick 4cce2c4 revert "bower dependency versions reseted"
You are currently rebasing branch 'MyBranch' on '571ebdf'.

nothing to commit, working tree clean
The previous cherry-pick is now empty, possibly due to conflict resolution.
If you wish to commit it anyway, use:

    git commit --allow-empty

If you wish to skip this commit, use:

    git reset

Then "git cherry-pick --continue" will resume cherry-picking
the remaining commits.
Could not apply 0b63ca6... bower dependency versions reseted  to fd042953

But I still see all alst two commits in github. Am I missing some extra step here or did I understand wrong that it is possible to use "rebase -p onto" to reach what I want?

2) git rebase -i 571ebdfa

pick 0b63ca6 bower dependency versions reseted  to fd042953
pick 4cce2c4 revert "bower dependency versions reseted"

# Rebase 571ebdf..4cce2c4 onto 571ebdf (2 commands)
#
# Commands:
# p, pick = use commit
# r, reword = use commit, but edit the commit message
# e, edit = use commit, but stop for amending
# s, squash = use commit, but meld into previous commit
# f, fixup = like "squash", but discard this commit's log message
# x, exec = run command (the rest of the line) using shell
# d, drop = remove commit
#
# These lines can be re-ordered; they are executed from top to bottom.
#
/c/dev/my-app/.git/rebase-merge/git-rebase-todo [unix] (10:23 14/06/2018)                    1,1 Top"C:/dev/my-app/.git/rebase-merge/git-rebase-todo" [unix] 21L, 755C

then I tried :wq

and I get

Last command done (1 command done):
   pick 0b63ca6 bower dependency versions reseted  to fd042953
Next command to do (1 remaining command):
   pick 4cce2c4 revert "bower dependency versions reseted"
You are currently rebasing branch 'MyBranch' on '571ebdf'.

nothing to commit, working tree clean
The previous cherry-pick is now empty, possibly due to conflict resolution.
If you wish to commit it anyway, use:

    git commit --allow-empty

If you wish to skip this commit, use:

    git reset

Then "git cherry-pick --continue" will resume cherry-picking
the remaining commits.
Could not apply 0b63ca6... bower dependency versions reseted  to fd042953

Isn't rebase aimed to be used in this case: when we want to return to a previous commit not only in our local but in our remote repository as well?

3) git revert 0b63ca64 50021514

This reverts commit 0b63ca6484cc9225c75b19ede27fe90e39e6d094.

# Please enter the commit message for your changes. Lines starting
# with '#' will be ignored, and an empty message aborts the commit.
#
# On branch MyBranch
# Your branch is up to date with 'origin/MyBranch'.
#
# Last command done (1 command done):
#    pick 0b63ca6 bower dependency versions reseted  to fd042953
# Next command to do (1 remaining command):
#    pick 4cce2c4 revert "bower dependency versions reseted"
# You are currently rebasing branch 'MyBranch' on '571ebdf'.
#
/c/dev/my-app/.git/COMMIT_EDITMSG [unix] (10:34 14/06/2018)                                  1,1 Top"C:/dev/my-app/.git/COMMIT_EDITMSG" [unix] 20L, 738C

then I typed :wq

and I get

[MyBranch 9276513] Revert "bower dependency versions reseted"
 2 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
error: commit 50021514f6484eecff50e088686ed6b2f2203d47 is a merge but no -m option was given.
fatal: revert failed

Well, from user perspective I just want to delete the last two commits from a specific branch deleting as well their history.

Answer 1

do this

git checkout develop

git checkout -b temp_branch

git reset --hard 571ebdfa #sha code from the commit where you want the head to point

git log #you should see all clean 

now do a force push to origin

git push -f origin develop

Check the logs in github as well.

Do remember you just pushed your temp_branch to develop, now you need to set your local/develop as well.

if everything looks fine then do

git branch -D develop

git fetch 

git checkout develop

git branch -D temp_branch

Answer 2

My last commit: 50021514 (I want to delete from github including the history)

My second last commit: 0b63ca64 (I want to delete from github including the history)

My third commit: 571ebdfa (I want this to be the head from now on)

Just put this into perspective, you want this:

---571ebdfa--0b63ca64--50021514
                           ^
                        develop

to become:

---571ebdfa
       ^
    develop

You were on the right track with git rebase --onto, you were just missing the second argument:

git checkout develop
git rebase --onto 571ebdfa 0b63ca64

You can think of it as:

git rebase --onto <new-base> <old-base>

which will effectively remove commits 0b63ca64 and 50021514 from develop.

You can read a more detailed explanation of the different ways to use git rebase --onto in this answer.

Of course, since you're removing the latest commits in a branch, you can simply say:

git checkout develop
git reset --hard 571ebdfa 

At this point, you'll have to force push your rewritten develop branch to the upstream repository with:

git push -f origin develop

Or just:

git push -f

if your local develop branch is set up to track the remote origin/develop branch (which is likely the case).