Sync Git Branch Continuously

Runs a continuous pull and push loop in the background for Git repositories to keep a local branch synchronized with remote branches. This helps ensure that new worktrees based off of main are more up to date.

Workflow Loop

The sync loop periodically executes:

1. git pull --ff-only <pull-from-remote> <pull-from-branch>
2. git push <push-to-remote> HEAD:<push-to-branch>
3. Sleeps until timeout (e.g., 60s) or until awakened by an asynchronous SIGUSR1 signal.

Script Location

The synchronization script is located at: scripts/sync_git_branch_continuously.py under this skill directory.

Running the Continuous Sync Script

To start the continuous sync script as a background daemon process:

# Sync active branch with tracking remote every 60s (default):
REPO_NAME=$(basename "$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null || pwd)")
BRANCH_NAME=$(git branch --show-current 2>/dev/null || echo "default")
./.agents/skills/sync-git-branch-continuously/scripts/\
sync_git_branch_continuously.py \
  > "/tmp/sync_git_${REPO_NAME}_${BRANCH_NAME}.log" 2>&1 &

Script Options

• --pull-from-branch <name>: Remote branch to pull from (defaults to active branch).
• --push-to-branch <name>: Remote branch to push to (defaults to active branch).
• --pull-from-remote <name>: Remote repository to pull from (defaults to tracking remote or origin).
• --push-to-remote <name>: Remote repository to push to (defaults to tracking remote or origin).
• --interval <seconds>: Sleep interval between sync iterations (default: 60 seconds).

Example with custom source and target destinations:

./.agents/skills/sync-git-branch-continuously/scripts/\
sync_git_branch_continuously.py \
  --pull-from-remote upstream --pull-from-branch main \
  --push-to-remote origin --push-to-branch feature \
  --interval 30 \
  > "/tmp/sync_git_main.log" 2>&1 &

Asynchronous Sync Triggers (Signals)

Other processes or agent conversations can asynchronously wake up the daemon and trigger an immediate pull/push cycle without waiting for the interval to expire:

# By PID:
kill -USR1 <PID>

# Or by matching process name:
pkill -USR1 -f "sync_git_branch_continuously.py"

Monitoring & Logs

To check the status or inspect the output of the active background sync loop:

tail -n 20 "/tmp/sync_git_${REPO_NAME}_${BRANCH_NAME}.log"

Authentication Failures

When git pull or git push fails due to invalid or expired credentials:

1. Keep the background sync process running so it automatically resumes if credentials are refreshed incidentally. Never mask or sanitize authentication errors to suppress wakeups.
2. Prompt the user via ask_question so a UI popup alerts them to re-authenticate.
3. After the user responds, trigger an immediate sync cycle (kill -USR1 <PID>) and verify the sync log.