"Messy" and "tidy" is not something I'd expect to see in the conversation about private branches.

Version control in the private branch is a tool which helps me maintain state and go back and forward in time. It looks exactly like I thought about the code or work I needed to do at some point in time. It is not messy or tidy, it's just what it is. I don't have to please anyone's sensibilities when I'm in the private branch.

The merge into main is squashed and atomic, of course.