Merge

Merge Successful Sessions

Merge each successful session to the feature branch, one at a time (sequential — no race conditions).

Prerequisites: Sessions in this layer have completed. The orchestrator has read each session's status file and identified which sessions succeeded.

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Merge Policy

Squash merge. One commit per session on the feature branch. Commit message: S{N}: {session focus}.

For each successful session in this layer:

cd {project-root}
git merge --squash autoboard/{slug}-s{N}
git commit -m "S{N}: {session focus}"

Merge sessions sequentially — never in parallel. Order does not matter for independent sessions in the same layer, but sequential execution prevents race conditions on the feature branch.

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Conflict Resolution

On conflict: Try auto-resolve strategies:

1. Run git merge --squash autoboard/{slug}-s{N} — if it fails with conflicts:
2. Check git diff --name-only --diff-filter=U for the list of conflicting files
3. For each conflicting file, attempt resolution:
   • If the conflict is whitespace or formatting only, accept the session's version
   • If the conflict is in generated files (lock files, build artifacts), accept the session's version
   • For all other conflicts, try git checkout --theirs {file} only if the file was not modified by a previously merged session in this layer
4. After auto-resolve attempts, check if conflicts remain with git diff --check
5. If unresolvable conflicts remain:
   • Report to the user with the full list of conflicting files and the sessions involved
   • Never force-merge — do not use --force, -X theirs, or any strategy that silently discards changes
   • Preserve the session branch and worktree for investigation
   • Abort the merge: git merge --abort
   • Block the run until the user resolves the conflict

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Worktree Lifecycle

On Successful Merge

Clean up the session worktree and branch:

git worktree remove /tmp/autoboard-{slug}-s{N}
git branch -D autoboard/{slug}-s{N}

On Failure

NEVER delete the worktree or branch on failure. This is non-negotiable. The worktree contains the session's work and is needed for:

• User investigation of conflicts
• Retry by the failure skill
• Manual resolution

Preserve both /tmp/autoboard-{slug}-s{N} (worktree) and autoboard/{slug}-s{N} (branch) intact.

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Tracking

After each successful merge, if tracking is active:

• close-ticket(session ticket, "Merged to feature branch")

(close-ticket includes moving to Done — no separate move-ticket call needed.)

If merge fails, do NOT close or move the ticket — the failure skill handles ticket updates for failed sessions.

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After All Merges

Once all successful sessions in this layer are merged, proceed immediately to the coherence audit. Do NOT skip to the QA gate or next layer — the coherence audit must run after merge, before anything else.