Merge And Cleanup

PR Merge and Complete Cleanup

Fully automated PR merge workflow that handles squash merge, branch deletion, default branch switching, and worktree cleanup. Includes safety checks and edge case handling.

Workflow

Step 1: Detect context

Run these commands to understand the current state:

# Get current branch
BRANCH=$(git branch --show-current)
echo "Branch: $BRANCH"

# Check if on main/master
DEFAULT_BRANCH=$(git remote show origin | sed -n 's/.*HEAD branch: //p')
if [ -z "$DEFAULT_BRANCH" ]; then
  DEFAULT_BRANCH=$(git symbolic-ref refs/remotes/origin/HEAD 2>/dev/null | sed 's|refs/remotes/origin/||')
fi
echo "Default branch: $DEFAULT_BRANCH"

# Check for uncommitted changes
git status --porcelain

# Check if in a worktree
GIT_DIR=$(git rev-parse --git-dir)
GIT_COMMON_DIR=$(git rev-parse --git-common-dir)
echo "git-dir: $GIT_DIR"
echo "git-common-dir: $GIT_COMMON_DIR"

• If DEFAULT_BRANCH is empty, report "Could not determine the default branch — check that the origin remote is configured" and stop.
• If BRANCH equals DEFAULT_BRANCH (main/master), report "Already on the default branch, nothing to merge" and stop.
• If git status --porcelain has output, warn the user about uncommitted changes and ask whether to proceed.
• If GIT_DIR != GIT_COMMON_DIR, we're in a worktree. Note the current worktree path (pwd) and the main repo path (parent of GIT_COMMON_DIR).

Step 2: Find and merge the PR

# Look up PR for this branch
gh pr view --json state,number,title,mergeStateStatus,statusCheckRollup

• If no PR exists, tell the user and suggest creating one with gh pr create. Stop.
• If the PR state is not OPEN, tell the user the PR is already closed/merged. Stop.
• If mergeStateStatus is BLOCKED or status checks are failing, warn the user and ask whether to proceed anyway.
• If everything looks good, merge:

gh pr merge --squash --delete-branch

If the merge fails, report the error and stop. Note: when in a worktree, --delete-branch may warn about failing to delete the local branch (since it's checked out). This is expected — the local branch will be cleaned up when the worktree is removed in Step 4. Only treat it as a failure if the merge itself fails.

Step 3: Switch to default branch and pull

If NOT in a worktree:

git checkout $DEFAULT_BRANCH
git pull

If in a worktree:

Do NOT try to checkout inside the worktree. Instead, note that cleanup will happen next.

Step 4: Worktree cleanup (if applicable)

If we detected a worktree in Step 1:

Use git -C to operate on the main repo without relying on cd (which does not persist across Bash tool calls). Run these as a single chained command:

WORKTREE_PATH=$(pwd)
MAIN_REPO=$(git rev-parse --git-common-dir | sed 's|/\.git$||')

git -C "$MAIN_REPO" checkout "$DEFAULT_BRANCH" && \
git -C "$MAIN_REPO" pull && \
git -C "$MAIN_REPO" worktree remove "$WORKTREE_PATH" && \
git -C "$MAIN_REPO" worktree prune

Report the worktree path that was removed.

Step 5: Summary

Report what was done:

• PR number and title that was merged
• Branch that was deleted
• Whether we switched to the default branch and pulled
• Whether a worktree was cleaned up (and its path)

Edge Cases

• Already on main — report nothing to do, stop
• No PR for branch — suggest gh pr create, stop
• Uncommitted changes — warn and ask before proceeding
• PR merge fails — report error, stop
• Worktree removal fails — report error but note the manual cleanup command
• CI checks failing — warn and ask before merging

Behavior

1. Always squash merge (not regular merge or rebase) 2. Always delete the remote branch via --delete-branch 3. Default branch detection is automatic (works with main, master, or other names) 4. Be explicit about each step so the user sees progress 5. If a critical step fails (merge, checkout), stop and report clearly. For cleanup steps (worktree removal, prune), report the error and provide the manual recovery command