Git Workflow

End-to-end git lifecycle for craft users: initialize a repo, manage branches and worktrees, sync with remotes, protect (or temporarily bypass) main/dev, check whether an open issue's premise still holds, and surface the learning/safety reference material when users ask "how do I undo X?". Consolidates the 9 commands/git/*.md commands and 4 commands/git/docs/*.md reference docs into one coherent skill.

When to Use

Activate when the user's prompt matches any of these concerns:

If the prompt is ambiguous, default to enhanced status (cheapest) and offer follow-ups.

Prerequisites

• Git installed (git --version)
• For protection / GitHub-side operations: gh CLI authenticated
• For worktrees: shared ~/.git-worktrees/ directory convention (created on first use)
• For learning material: no prerequisites — pure reference

Operations

1. Repo Init

Bootstrap a new git repo with craft's workflow conventions.

Inputs: optional remote (OWNER/REPO or URL), workflow pattern (main-dev | simple | gitflow), --dry-run, --yes for non-interactive.

Steps:

1. git init (idempotent — detect existing .git/).
2. Scaffold initial commit if working tree is empty.
3. If main-dev workflow (the craft default for multi-branch repos): create dev branch off main, set dev as the integration branch.
4. If remote provided: gh repo create <remote> (private by default), set origin, push both branches.
5. Apply local branch-guard rules (see Operation 8) and optionally GitHub-side baseline (Operation 9).
6. Write a starter .gitignore, README.md skeleton, and CLAUDE.md template if absent.
7. Offer the protection audit/wizard immediately after creating the repo (added by SPEC-branch-protection-consolidation-2026-07-07 §4.5): one AskUserQuestion — "Set up branch protection now?" with "Yes, run the audit (Recommended)" listed first and reasoned ("a freshly-scaffolded repo is unprotected until something enables it — cheapest to do now"). On yes, run Operation 8's --audit flow exactly as documented there — do not re-implement or re-describe the wizard here, this is the same logic invoked at a second trigger point. On no (or non-interactive --yes init), skip silently; the repo is left with whatever step 5 already applied.

Default workflow: main-dev (craft's recommended pattern). Switch to simple only when the user explicitly opts out of the dev integration branch.

2. Branch Management

Create, switch, and delete branches safely.

Sub-actions: new <name>, switch <name>, delete <name>, sync (alias to Operation 6), and a default no-arg overview.

Safety rules (enforced before any destructive action):

• Never delete the current branch.
• Never delete protected branches (main, master, dev, develop).
• Refuse to switch if working tree has uncommitted changes — suggest git stash or commit first.
• For new, default base is dev if it exists, else main.

3. Enhanced Status

git status with extra context: current branch, ahead/behind, worktree-aware path, teaching-mode hints if a _teaching/ directory exists, and a guard-status line (protection level, session-confirm count, one-shot-pending state, or BYPASSED (reason: ...) — sourced from Operation 8's config/auto-detect, not re-derived here).

Fetch first: run git fetch <remote> --quiet before computing ahead/behind — the divergence count reads the local <remote>/<branch> ref, which is only as current as the last fetch. Skipping this can silently report a stale sync state (e.g. "0 ahead, 0 behind" when the remote has actually moved) with no indication anything is wrong.

Modes: --verbose (full git status after the summary), --compact (one-line summary only).

Use this as the cheap default when the user's prompt is ambiguous.

4. Branch Cleanup

Remove merged feature branches that no longer have work in progress.

Steps:

1. Detect merged branches using a two-pass approach:
   • Pass 1 — git branch --merged: catches normal fast-forward and merge-commit merges.
   • Pass 2 — is_squash_merged (from lib/git-utils.sh): catches squash-merged branches that --merged misses. Uses git cherry (exact patch-ID match) with a tree-diff fallback for multi-commit squashes.
2. Skip protected branches and the current branch.
3. Skip branches with uncommitted changes or unpushed commits.
4. ORCHESTRATE check: warn if any ORCHESTRATE-*.md files remain on dev — they're working artifacts and should have been deleted by the worktree finish step.
5. Preview deletions in --dry-run; badge squash-merged branches as (squash-merged, safe to delete) so the user can distinguish them from normal merged branches. Confirm interactively before executing.

Never run git branch -D without explicit confirmation on branches that is_squash_merged returns NOT_MERGED or UNKNOWN.

--dry-run / structured collection mode: branch_cleanup_dry_run [base] (in lib/git-utils.sh) performs the same two-pass detection above but only collects — it never runs git branch -D. It emits one JSON object per line (JSONL), one per candidate branch:

{"branch": "feature/foo", "merge_evidence": "squash-merged", "ancestor_result": "ancestor", "pr_state": "merged", "scoped_diff_result": "clean"}

branch is the join key consumers use to pair a branch candidate with its Operation 5 worktree candidate (see below). pr_state is best-effort — "unknown" when gh is unavailable or no merged PR is found; absence of PR evidence never blocks a candidate that already has merge_evidence/ancestor_result support.

5. Worktree Management

Parallel development via git worktree — each branch in its own folder, no stash juggling.

Sub-actions:

Convention: ~/.git-worktrees/<project>/feature-<name>/, branch named feature/<name>, base typically dev.

Critical safety rule: before any git operation in a worktree, verify CWD and branch with git worktree list + git branch --show-current — sessions are CWD-pinned and absolute paths may diverge.

create — branch guard: worktrees must be created from dev, never main (hard block, no override — if on main, tell the user to git checkout dev first). After creating, install dependencies by auto-detecting project type (package.json → npm install; pyproject.toml → uv venv && uv pip install -e .; requirements.txt → pip install -r requirements.txt; Cargo.toml/go.mod → nothing, global cache; DESCRIPTION/renv.lock → R -e "renv::restore()").

create — scope-based auto-setup: after creating, detect scope from the branch name and offer (via confirmation) to create workflow files:

move — bring an in-progress branch into a worktree: the sequence is stash (git stash push --include-untracked) → switch main folder to main/master → git worktree add for the feature branch → cd into the new worktree → git stash pop → install dependencies (same detection as create). Use case: work started in the main folder needs to move to a worktree so the main folder can return to a stable base branch.

finish — complete a feature and open a PR: (1) run tests auto-detected by project type (npm test / pytest -v / R CMD check . --no-manual / cargo test / go test ./...); (2) generate a changelog entry, inferring the section from branch prefix (feat/* → Added, fix/* → Fixed, docs/* → Documentation, else → Changed); (3) remove stray ORCHESTRATE-*.md working artifacts with a cleanup commit — they're feature-branch scratch files and must not merge to dev; (4) gh pr create targeting dev (or main if no dev branch exists) with an AI-generated title/body summarizing the commits. Flags: --skip-tests, --draft, --target <branch>.

validate — read-only environment check: confirm CWD is inside the expected ~/.git-worktrees/<project>/<branch> path and the branch name matches the folder name; no confirmation needed, no changes made.

clean — remove merged worktrees: find worktrees for branches merged into main, confirm removal per-branch, then git worktree prune for stale references.

clean --dry-run / structured collection mode: worktree_clean_dry_run [base] (in lib/git-utils.sh, same file as is_squash_merged) performs the collection step only — no git worktree remove, no git worktree prune. Emits one JSON object per line (JSONL), skipping the main worktree and any detached-HEAD worktree:

{"path": "~/.git-worktrees/craft/feature-foo", "branch": "feature/foo", "is_merged_evidence": "squash-merged", "lock_status": "unlocked"}

branch is the join key — a consumer (e.g. repo-triage) pairs this record with branch_cleanup_dry_run's Operation 4 output on that field to render one merged candidate per branch+worktree pair, rather than two independent opt-outs.

6. Remote Sync

Pull and push with conflict-handling guidance.

Steps:

1. git fetch <remote> --quiet to refresh remote-tracking refs — divergence in step 2 is only accurate against a freshly-fetched ref, never a cached one.
2. Detect divergence: ahead/behind counts against upstream.
3. Fast-forward pull if behind only.
4. If both ahead and behind: prompt for rebase vs merge (default rebase for feature branches, merge for dev/main).
5. Push after pull; report any non-fast-forward rejections instead of force-pushing.

Never force-push to protected branches (main, dev). For feature branches, prefer --force-with-lease over --force.

7. Git Activity Recap

Lightweight summary: today's commits, this week's commits, branch ahead/behind, unpushed work, open PRs (gh pr list --author @me).

Fetch first: run git fetch <remote> --quiet before computing ahead/behind and unpushed-commit counts, same reason as Operations 3 and 6 — a stale local <remote>/<branch> ref reports a stale sync state with no staleness signal.

Modes: default | detailed | summary. Complements (does not replace) the broader recap operation in adhd-workflow — that one reads .STATUS; this one reads git history.

8. Local Branch Protection

Re-enable or configure craft's local branch-guard.sh hook (the layer that blocks commits to main / new code on dev / etc.). Absorbs the former git/protect.md command, deleted entirely in the 2026-07 v4 consolidation (see Integration table).

Sub-actions: --show (display current config), --level <smart|block-all|block-new-code>, --reset (revert to auto-detect), --no-hard-deny (skip the hard_deny installation prompt), --audit (gap-diff wizard, described below; default action when invoked with no args and protection is already active — bare protect with an active bypass still re-enables first, per Step 2 below, then offers --audit).

Config file: .claude/branch-guard.json (per-repo, protection level — a separate file from the global ~/.claude/guards.json registry Operation 12 mutates; see that Operation's note on scope). Use one consistent variable name throughout any implementation — CONFIG_FILE — never a second alias (CONFIG); this fixes a drift bug carried in the pre-consolidation protect.md.

Three protection levels:

• smart — matches the craft default table (main blocked, dev allows existing-file edits, feature/* allows all).
• block-all — paranoid; nothing flows through main or dev without explicit unprotect.
• block-new-code — legacy alias for smart (new code files on dev are noted once per session, not blocked).

Steps (bare invocation, no bypass active):

1. Detect current branch (git branch --show-current) and current level: read CONFIG_FILE's entry for the branch if present, else auto-detect from docs/specs/baseline.json's local_hook.recommended_level_by_branch_role (main/master → block-all, dev/develop/draft → smart if that integration branch exists, feature/* and everything else → none).
2. If a bypass marker (.claude/allow-dev-edit) is active, remove it (rm -f .claude/allow-dev-edit) and report "Branch protection RE-ENABLED."
3. Run the hard_deny detection/install flow (unchanged from the former protect.md, skip entirely if --no-hard-deny or ~/.claude/.craft-hard-deny-declined exists): bash scripts/install-hard-deny.sh --check --json, offer to install via AskUserQuestion (Yes install / Skip this time / Never offer again) if would_add is non-empty, run bash scripts/install-hard-deny.sh --install on yes.
4. If no bypass was active (protection already on), skip straight to the --audit wizard below unless --show/--level/--reset was explicitly passed instead.

--show: display branch, detected/configured level, session-confirm count, one-shot-pending state, bypass state — no changes made.

--level <level>: write CONFIG_FILE's entry for the current branch (jq --arg branch "$BRANCH" --arg level "$LEVEL" '.[$branch] = $level' "$CONFIG_FILE", creating the file if absent).

--reset: remove the current branch's entry from CONFIG_FILE (jq --arg branch "$BRANCH" 'del(.[$branch])' "$CONFIG_FILE"), reverting to auto-detect.

--audit — gap-diff-then-ask wizard (added by SPEC-branch-protection-consolidation-2026-07-07 §4.5):

1. Read local state: CONFIG_FILE entry (or auto-detect) for the current branch.
2. Read GitHub-side state by reusing Operation 9's existing gh api check — do not re-implement, call the same lookup Operation 9 already documents.
3. Diff both against docs/specs/baseline.json (local recommended_level_by_branch_role, GitHub recommended_settings).
4. For each gap found, walk it one AskUserQuestion at a time (never a single dump of every gap) — Recommended-first, with the reason stated (matches this skill's own grilling pattern, not a batch confirm). Example gaps: local level below baseline for this branch role, GitHub PR-required missing, force-push/deletion allowed.
5. Apply only what the user confirms per-gap. Never silently apply, never silently skip — the whole point of this wizard is asking, not automating past a prior always-confirm mistake this project already made and reverted once.
6. If no gaps found: report "Branch protection matches the recommended baseline — nothing to do."

This operation manages the local hook config (.claude/branch-guard.json) directly, and diffs GitHub-side state (via Operation 9) for the audit — but does not itself mutate GitHub-side settings; that write still goes through Operation 9. For GitHub-side protection application/removal, see Operation 9.

9. GitHub-Side Baseline Protection

Apply craft's GitHub-side baseline (PR required with required_approving_review_count: 0, no force-push, no deletions) to any repo via gh api -X PUT repos/OWNER/REPO/branches/<branch>/protection.

Arguments: --repo OWNER/REPO, --branch, --check <name> (repeatable, for required status checks), --strict (require up-to-date with base), --dry-run, --remove, --show.

API quirks to handle:

• required_status_checks and restrictions must be explicit null when absent — omitting them rejects the PUT.
• Status check names with embedded commas (test (ubuntu-latest, 3.12)) need --check as a repeatable flag, never comma-separated parsing.
• Route check names through json.dumps() / jq -R -s; never hand-build the JSON.
• Human-readable headers go to stderr; JSON payload to stdout — preserves pipeability (... | jq).

GitHub-side protection is independent of the local hook — unprotect (Operation 10) does NOT remove it.

10. Session Bypass (Unprotect)

Session-scoped bypass of the local branch-guard hook. Persists until protect (Operation 8) re-enables, or the session ends.

Required input: reason — one of merge-conflict, ci-fix, maintenance, or a freeform string for the audit log. Reason is logged to .claude/branch-guard.log.

Does NOT bypass: GitHub-side protection, pre-commit hooks, or any other layer. Only the craft local hook.

Non-interactive/auto-mode deadlock (issue #281): writing the .claude/allow-dev-edit marker this operation needs is itself intercepted by branch-guard's own confirm gate — in a genuinely non-interactive session, AskUserQuestion having already collected human consent doesn't resolve that resulting block (hooks are stateless per-invocation). If this operation appears to loop without ever completing, tell the user their session needs CRAFT_GUARD_ALLOW_DEV_EDIT=1 set out-of-band (shell profile / Claude env) before the marker write will succeed — same shape as CRAFT_GUARD_ALLOW_FORCE_DELETE, scripts/branch-guard.sh's pre-existing git branch -D escape hatch for the identical deadlock (issue #168).

11. Reference Docs (Learning, Refcard, Safety, Undo)

When the user wants to read rather than act, surface the reference docs instead of running operations:

(refcard.md moved to skills/dev/git/references/ in the v4 consolidation, Phase 3.5, 2026-07-12 — it crossed the deprecated-command body-size audit threshold at 363 lines.)

For undo specifically, prefer the doc over speculating — it has scripted recovery flows for the common "oh no" scenarios (wrong commit message, wrong branch, accidental push, deleted work, merge conflicts).

12. Guard Registry CLI

Inspect, enable, disable, and profile the craft guard suite (branch-guard.sh + no-switch-guard.sh). Absorbs the former git/guard.md command, deleted entirely in the 2026-07 v4 consolidation (see Integration table). Guards live in ~/.claude/settings.json as PreToolUse hooks; their toggle state is persisted in ~/.claude/guards.json.

This Operation has TWO sanctioned mutators of ~/.claude/guards.json, coordinated through a shared lock (corrected — a second writer was found during adversarial review, superseding the former "sole mutator" claim): this Operation's enable/disable/profile sub-actions, and scripts/install-guards.sh's seed/merge-on-install path. Both acquire lib/guards-lock.sh (mkdir-based, atomic on macOS and Linux) around every read-modify-write, so a concurrent mutation from either path can't lose the other's update — see tests/test_guards_registry_concurrency.sh for the regression coverage. Do not add a third ad hoc writer to this file without wiring it through the same lock. It does not own .claude/branch-guard.json (per-repo protection level) — that file is written directly by Operation 8's --level/--reset, a separate mutation surface for a separate file. The read path (branch-guard.sh/no-switch-guard.sh reading guards.json at hook-invocation time) is unchanged and has no LLM in it — a PreToolUse hook fires before any model turn.

Sub-actions: list, status, explain <cmd>, test, enable <name|#>, disable <name|#> [--permanent|--session], profile <focus|yolo|spec>.

Prerequisite: verify jq is on PATH before any action; verify ~/.claude/guards.json exists (point at install-guards.sh if not). Sweep and auto-clear expired mutes (muted_until in the past → set back to null) before displaying any state, for every sub-action — this sweep writes when it clears a mute, so it goes through the lock helper below the same as enable/disable/profile (a read-only list/status with nothing to sweep never acquires the lock).

list / status: read ~/.claude/guards.json + ~/.claude/settings.json, build a numbered table (alphabetical). Generate this table from guards.json at render time — never hardcode it (a third registered guard would otherwise go stale in the docs; this was a real gap in the former guard.md). State icons: 🛡️ enabled, ⚠️ muted (Nm), ⛔ disabled. status additionally shows registry path + mtime, active/muted counts.

explain <cmd> — unified dry-run across both hooks (NEW, generalizes the former guard.md's reasoning-only explain): run the command text through both scripts' real classification logic, not LLM narration, via each script's --classify / GUARD_DRY_RUN=1 mode (added to scripts/branch-guard.sh and scripts/no-switch-guard.sh by this consolidation):

echo '{"tool_name":"Bash","tool_input":{"command":"<cmd>"},"cwd":"<pwd>"}' \
  | GUARD_DRY_RUN=1 bash scripts/branch-guard.sh
echo '{"tool_input":{"command":"<cmd>"}}' \
  | GUARD_DRY_RUN=1 bash scripts/no-switch-guard.sh

Each script's classify mode prints a single line — ALLOW: <reason> / ASK: <reason> / BLOCK: <reason> (branch-guard) or ALLOW: / YELLOW: / ASK: (no-switch-guard) / SKIP: <reason> (muted/disabled) — reusing the existing block()/ask()/announce()/_low_note() call sites, so the printed tier is ground truth, not a re-derivation. The CLI presents a single unified table from these two independent lines — it does not, and must not, unify the two scripts' actual emission mechanisms (exit 2+stderr for branch-guard vs. permissionDecision JSON for no-switch-guard stay separate; already litigated and rejected in SPEC-craft-guard-suite-2026-06-19.md §2). Example combined output:

Dry-run: git switch main
─────────────────────────────────
branch-guard     → (not evaluated — Bash/switch is no-switch-guard's concern)
no-switch-guard  → ASK: Switch ONTO 'main' detected. main/master is protected.

Result: would prompt for confirmation

test: run tests/test_branch_guard.sh and tests/test_no_switch_guard.sh if present, report pass/fail/missing per script.

enable <name|#> / disable <name|#> [--permanent|--session] / profile <focus|yolo|spec>: jq-mutate guards.json (enabled, muted_until), never raw cat >. focus enables all; yolo mutes all 30 min; spec enables branch-guard and mutes no-switch-guard 30 min. Every write is lock-guarded — install-guards.sh mutates the same file (its seed/merge-on-install path), so Operation 12 is no longer the sole writer and must coordinate:

bash lib/guards-lock.sh acquire ~/.claude/guards.json.lock
trap 'bash lib/guards-lock.sh release ~/.claude/guards.json.lock' EXIT
jq '<transform>' ~/.claude/guards.json > ~/.claude/guards.json.tmp \
  && mv ~/.claude/guards.json.tmp ~/.claude/guards.json
bash lib/guards-lock.sh release ~/.claude/guards.json.lock
trap - EXIT

Acquire immediately before the jq read-modify-write, release immediately after the mv — use a trap ... EXIT so a failure mid-write can't leak the lock. Run lib/guards-lock.sh from the repo root (or an absolute path to it); it is a standalone script, not sourced, since Operation 12's mutation runs as inline bash issued per-turn with no persistent shell shared with install-guards.sh.

guards.json schema: {"guards": {"<name>": {"enabled": bool, "muted_until": iso8601|null, "mute_window_min": int}}}. enabled: false = permanently off; muted_until in the future = muted; both null/false-mute = active. Guard logic lives in the shell scripts — this file stores toggle state only.

13. Issue Premise Check

Before implementing a fix an open GitHub issue requests, check whether the issue's own premise still holds against current code. Absorbs commands/git/issue-check.md.

Returns: a structured verdict — valid (fix still needed), moot (already resolved or closed), or unclear (cannot be mechanically verified) — always with cited evidence (file path + note), never a bare label.

Never caches: every invocation re-fetches the issue via gh issue view fresh; no verdict is stored or reused across runs or trigger points.

Never mutates: read-only — no gh issue close/edit/comment/reopen` call exists anywhere in the implementation.

Consumers: standalone (/craft:git:issue-check <N>) and /craft:orch:drive's pre-filter (only runs when a driven task's SPEC cites a #NNN issue — zero cost otherwise).

See commands/git/issue-check.md for the classifier logic (classify_issue()).

Cross-Operation Patterns

Always verify CWD and branch before destructive ops

Worktrees and CWD-pinned sessions mean a single git push can land somewhere unexpected. Before any push, branch delete, or worktree remove:

git worktree list
git branch --show-current
pwd

Branch architecture per repo

Two patterns coexist in the craft ecosystem:

• Multi-branch: main (PR only) ← dev (integration) ← feature/*. Used by craft only.
• Single-integration: main (PR only) ← feature/*. All other repos.

Detect with git branch -a | grep -E 'remotes/origin/(main|dev)$' before assuming which integration branch applies.

Defense in depth

Branch protection layers, weakest to strongest:

1. Convention (CLAUDE.md says "don't commit to main").
2. Local pre-commit / branch-guard hook (Operation 8).
3. GitHub-side protection (Operation 9).

Operation 8 is the everyday enforcer; Operation 9 is the backstop. Apply both for solo-dev repos — the GitHub side catches local bypasses or work pushed from another machine.

Overlap with Other Skills

• guard-audit — analyzes branch-guard rules to find false positives and proposes JSON config changes. This skill toggles the guard on/off and applies the baseline. Trigger phrases are distinct: guard-audit fires on "audit guard" / "guard friction" / "false positives"; this skill fires on "protect main" / "apply baseline" / "bypass protection". If the user reports the guard is blocking legitimate work, prefer guard-audit to tune config; if they want to toggle the layer, use this skill.
• release — runs the release pipeline (version bump, PR, tag, GitHub release). It uses git heavily but doesn't manage the git lifecycle itself. Hand off to release when the user says "ship it" or "cut a release"; stay here for branch/worktree/protection concerns.
• adhd-workflow — its recap reads .STATUS for session-level context. This skill's Operation 7 (git activity) reads git history. Both can be useful; run this skill's recap when the user explicitly says "git recap" or "git activity", and the other one for general "where did I leave off".

Integration

This skill replaces the 11 former commands/git/ commands and 4 reference docs as of the 2026-07 v4 consolidation (SPEC-branch-protection-consolidation-2026-07-07, T3.5.2). Ask naturally and this skill routes to the matching Operation:

The skill auto-fires on natural-language match. The 11 commands in the table above no longer exist as slash commands — their deprecation cycle is complete.

One live /craft:git:* command remains: /craft:git:issue-check (Operation 13), added after the T3.5.2 consolidation. It is deliberately not folded into this skill: tests/test_issue_check_unit.py extracts its classify_issue() block from commands/git/issue-check.md and exec()s it, so that command file is the single source of truth for the classifier — the same structural constraint recorded for commands/ci/triage.md in GRILL-phase-3-6-router-consolidation-2026-07-15.md (D13). Operation 13 documents the behavior; the command file owns the code.

Related Skills

• release — when the next action is "ship it" or "cut a release".
• guard-audit — when the user wants to tune guard config (false positives), not toggle protection. Distinct from this skill's Operation 12 registry CLI: guard-audit proposes config changes for friction; Operation 12 toggles guards on/off/muted and explains what a command would do.
• adhd-workflow — session-scope recap and next-task; this skill is git-scope.
• project-planner — multi-week project breakdowns; this skill handles the git lifecycle that planning eventually flows into.