finishing-a-development-branch

Finishing a Development Branch

When to invoke

WHEN implementation complete, all verifications pass, and the question is "what now?". After supervibe:executing-plans reaches its end OR after feature work in a worktree.

Expert Operating Standard

Follow docs/references/skill-expert-operating-standard.md: start from source of truth, preserve retrieval evidence, apply scope safety, use real producers with runtime receipts for durable delegated outputs, verify before completion claims, and keep confidence below gate when evidence is partial.

Step 0 — Read source of truth (required)

1. git status — uncommitted changes?
2. git log --oneline @{upstream}..HEAD — commits ahead of upstream
3. git log --oneline HEAD..@{upstream} — commits behind upstream
4. Check CI status if applicable
5. Read project's PR template / merge policy from .github/

Decision tree

What's the state?
├─ Uncommitted changes → STOP, finish committing first
├─ Behind upstream → rebase or merge upstream first
├─ Up to date AND tests pass:
│   ├─ Solo project / direct-merge OK → merge to main locally
│   ├─ Team project / PR required → open PR
│   ├─ Spike / experimental → archive branch, don't merge
│   └─ Failed approach → discard branch
└─ Tests fail → STOP, return to debugging

Procedure

1. Status check (Step 0)
2. Run supervibe:pre-pr-check for full check (typecheck/test/lint/audit)
3. Run supervibe:requesting-code-review if reviewer agent involved
4. Per option:
   • Merge to main: git checkout main && git merge --no-ff <branch> (if user says no commit suppression)
   • Open PR: gh pr create --title ... --body ... with template
   • Archive: rename branch to archive/<original> to retain history
   • Discard: only after explicit user confirmation; git branch -D is banned by rule, use git update-ref -d refs/heads/<branch> (also banned!) — actually: leave the branch, just stop working on it
5. Cleanup worktree if applicable: git worktree remove
6. Score — supervibe:confidence-scoring artifact-type=agent-output

Output contract

Returns:

• Final state: merged / PR opened / archived / abandoned
• Evidence: PR URL, commit hash, or archive name
• Confidence score

Guard rails

• DO NOT: merge with failing tests
• DO NOT: force-push to main (banned by rule)
• DO NOT: discard branches (banned by rule); archive instead
• DO NOT: git stash to clean (banned)
• ALWAYS: run full check before merge/PR
• ALWAYS: confirm with user before any destructive choice

Verification

• pre-pr-check output included
• Final state has evidence (URL/hash/archive-name)
• No banned operations executed

Related

• supervibe:pre-pr-check — invoked first
• supervibe:requesting-code-review — invoked for PR option
• supervibe:using-git-worktrees — pairs with this for cleanup
• git-discipline rule (Phase 3) — bans force-push, branch -D