`create:finish` leaves the merge local until `create:release` pushes it, so
`main` is routinely ahead of its upstream between a merge and a release. The
branch front door demanded an exact match and refused until it was pushed,
forcing a manual `git push` that the model deliberately keeps out of it.
Reject only a `main` that is behind its upstream — matching `create:finish`,
which already tolerates being ahead — and record why pushing from `finish` was
rejected instead. The push stays with `create:release`, so the merge remains
reviewable locally, and the known issue about the deadlock is gone.
Resolves: backlog task "Resolve the finish/push tension".
branch.sh, finish.sh, release.sh, runner-image.sh and release-notes.sh
carried multi-paragraph 'how we got here / rejected' essays in comments. They
now live in the matching development/ category file, and each script keeps a
one-line pointer so the rationale is single-homed and cannot drift.
The merge half of the branching model was still prose, so it drifted per
session. create:finish mirrors create:branch: it asserts the merge-side
preconditions, fast-forwards a stale main (divergence is refused), merges
--no-ff, runs npm run verify, and deletes the branch only when green. The
push stays with create:release so the merge is reviewable first.
Introduce a setup: prefix for one-time clone configuration (mutates the
local environment, never a hook or CI step) with setup as its umbrella
aggregator. Move use:git-commit-message to setup:git-commit-message as
its first member, retiring use: — the undocumented prefix tracked in the
backlog. Update both CONTRIBUTING.md prefix lists, the bare-command
inventory, and the stale use: reference in branch.sh.
`branch` and `release` were bare commands, but bare in this repo means
"how you invoke a tier" or "runs one tool" — neither fits a command that
opens or closes a unit of work. They get their own prefix now, since a
prefix is how this repo records _when_ a script runs.
`create:` because both members genuinely create something (a branch, a
release) and it is a plain verb rather than VCS slang. No bare `create`
aggregator: running "all the workflows" describes nothing anyone wants,
and `publish:*` already precedents a prefix without one.
The rule "reuse an existing prefix, never invent one" now says what it
actually means: a new prefix is allowed when the scripts belong in the
pipeline, provided it enters both lists in the same commit as its first
member. That is the lesson from `use:`, which is referenced by prose yet
in none of the lists — already tracked in backlog.tasks.
The bare-command sentence shrinks to `build`, `clean`, `verify`.
The branching model assumed a clean, current `main` and a green baseline
before any edit, but both were prose, and prose nobody checks silently
becomes a suggestion. `npm run branch -- <prefix>/<desc>` asserts the
precondition and only then creates the branch, so a later failure is
attributable to the change that caused it.
Checks run cheap-first (`--porcelain` deliberately catches untracked
files, which would otherwise ride onto the new branch) and the suite
runs last, so an ineligible tree never pays for it. `main`'s remote is
derived from its upstream rather than hardcoded: this repo has both
`origin` and `origin_https`, and `main` tracks the latter, so a
`git fetch origin main` currency check would compare against a ref that
is never updated here. The baseline runs after switching to `main`, so a
red `main` restores the starting branch instead of stranding the caller
on it.
The prefix stays a judgment call: the script validates it against the
documented vocabulary instead of inferring it.
Prose kept as index only — AGENTS.md points agents at the command from
the task workflow, CONTRIBUTING.md owns the model and the bare-script
tier (dropping its stale hardcoded count of "two" conveniences).
tmu