When I am working mostly alone I never rebase or merge. I have code in various directories on my laptop or ephemeral ranches, or more likely stashes if I have more than one thing in flight. When working with others, I will pull a branch while I work on something especially once I am ready for reviews or comments. If main progresses substantially while I work on it, I will rebase and then close and reopen any pending PRs. Especially the first time I start working on a repo, when I want a low key low pressure approach. Once they take some of my work and seem ok with me in general, I will switch to more frequent branchless PRs.