swingerman/engineer/post-merge

post-merge

The branch-hygiene skill that runs immediately after a PR merges — not deferred to the next session. next and session-summary already catch a stale branch at session boundaries (v1.7.1); post-merge closes the gap in between, where users were still asking "are we still on the feature branch?" mid-session.

When to use

• Auto — invoke right after observing a successful gh pr merge, gh pr merge --auto, or a "Merged" PR state in gh pr view --json state. The agent that ran the merge calls this skill before doing anything else.
• Manual — /engineer.post-merge or the trigger phrases above.

Not for: cleanup when the PR isn't merged yet (the work isn't done); session-end teardown (session-summary handles that); session-start survey (next already probes for stale branches as a backstop).

Workflow

1. Resolve + identify merged branch. Resolve the methodology root via ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/dae_resolve.py. Get the current branch (git branch --show-current). If it's main/master/the repo's default branch, there's nothing to clean — stop and report.

1. Probe merge state. Run git fetch origin --quiet, then check whether the current branch has been merged:

• GitHub-side check (preferred when gh is available): gh pr view --json state,mergedAt,headRefName --jq '.state' for the PR linked to this branch. State of MERGED is the strongest signal.
• Git-side check (fallback): git merge-base --is-ancestor HEAD origin/HEAD (or origin/main). True means every commit on this branch is reachable from main.

If neither check confirms a merge, stop — the work isn't shipped yet. Report what was checked.

1. Run the cleanup. Run the three commands in order, stopping on any non-zero exit:

`` git checkout <default-branch> git pull --ff-only git branch -d <merged-branch> ` git branch -d (not -D) refuses unmerged work — non-destructive by construction. If it refuses, surface what's unmerged and stop; don't escalate to -D` without explicit user confirmation.

1. Prune stale remote refs. git fetch origin --prune. Removes pointers to remote branches that no longer exist (e.g. when the GitHub "delete branch on merge" setting removed the remote).

1. Reconcile local state, then the tracker. Flip the local feature.md status FIRST — otherwise progress-log (which derives the tracker record from local truth) and next/reorient (which read feature.md status) keep seeing in-progress. Run:

`` ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/dae_reconcile.py <merged-feature-dir> --apply ` It sets feature.md status: done when the PR is merged (detected via gh, so **squash-merge and git.manual are covered** — the git-ancestry check in Step 2 is not) and returns flag: merged-unverified when no CP7 verify handoff exists. **If flagged, surface it prominently** — the feature shipped with its ACs unverified; that is a discipline gap, not a clean close. Then dispatch /engineer.progress-log to propagate the done state to progress.md + the tracker (records merged_at). Per ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/references/handoff-dispatch.md — auto at medium/high, surface-and-ask at low`.

5b. Feature map. If the merged feature added a user-facing surface and the verify-<app> skill (manifest.verify_app) has no row for it, add the row (feature → how to reach it → what working looks like) per ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/references/verify-app-skill.md. Committing it follows the Autonomy dispatch below. Feature maps fall behind when a missing row goes unnoticed, so don't skip this.

1. Close the session log. A merged feature is the clearest session boundary there is — the work shipped and the next session starts somewhere else. Auto-invoke /engineer.session-summary at autonomy medium/high; confirm-then-invoke at low. This is the human-readable "how do I pick this up" record; without it the only trace of the session is machine handoffs. Skip if a session-summary entry for today already exists on this feature.

1. Handoff. Emit a summary per ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/references/handoff-summary.md. checkpoint: null; artifacts: []; human_action_needed: no. The handoff records: the merged branch name, the PR URL (if known), and the new HEAD commit. recommended_next points at /engineer.next if the feature is shipped, or the relevant fix/session continuation otherwise.

Autonomy dispatch

When NOT to use this skill

• The PR is open or in review → wait until it's actually merged.
• The merge happened on a different branch than the one currently checked out → switch to that branch first (or just git fetch --prune and skip the rest).
• You squashed and force-pushed → git branch -d will refuse; that's expected. Either confirm -D manually or rebase onto main and try again.

References

• ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/references/handoff-summary.md — handoff schema
• ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/references/handoff-dispatch.md — autonomy-driven dispatch rule
• Sister skills: next (session-start stale-branch backstop), session-summary (session-end stale-branch backstop), progress-log (tracker propagation)