alphaxiv/openresearch/orx-git

Git records every experiment. GitHub publication may be enabled for collaborator visibility, but it is never part of compute transport. Follow the project playbook's publication status; do not push merely to launch compute and do not fetch from or publish back to the paper's upstream repository.

Other chat sessions may work in sibling worktrees of the same clone. Before starting, inspect git branch -a, orx runs <projectId>, and relevant orx exp desc <expId> notes so you do not duplicate their work. Branches and remotes are shared even though worktrees are separate. Keep experiment notes current as you learn so sibling sessions can orient from them.

One branch has one worktree owner. If checkout says a branch is already checked out, keep working only when the named path is your worktree; otherwise leave that branch to its owning session. Session worktrees start detached on the baseline, so check out the experiment branch before editing.

Each experiment node has a local orx/<slug> branch. orx create-experiment creates it from its parent. Work in the session worktree, check out the printed branch, make only that experiment's change, and commit it:

git checkout orx/<slug>
git status --short
git add <changed files>
git commit -m "describe the experiment change"

The runner builds an immutable source archive from the recorded commit, so committed work is sufficient on every backend. Uncommitted files are never included in a run. Before launching, confirm git status --short is empty and inspect the recorded commit with git show --stat --oneline HEAD.

To compare a child with its parent, use local refs only:

git diff <parent-branch>...orx/<child-slug>
git log --oneline <parent-branch>..orx/<child-slug>

Once a run answers an experiment, its branch and history are immutable. Never merge or rebase it. To incorporate other work, create a child and put the merge commit on the child's branch. Never rebase experiment history; it records the exact code that ran.