finishing-a-development-branch

To finalize a development branch after tests pass, this Skill validates your test suite, detects the base branch, and presents four deterministic options: merge locally, push and create a pull request, keep the branch, or discard it.

Automating branch management is handled by applying structured post-workflow options once tests pass, guiding teams through a fixed set of deterministic merge, pull request, or discard outcomes to ensure clean cleanup decisions.

This branch finalization workflow requires a functioning Git repository with an active test suite and standard CLI tools, but it does not install any new dependencies to execute its merge and pull request actions.

You can create a pull request automatically after your test suite finishes by selecting the push and create PR option, which is one of the four deterministic choices presented after tests are validated and the base branch is detected.

For merging a development branch locally versus creating a PR, you choose between four deterministic options: perform a local merge, push and create a pull request, keep the branch as-is, or discard it entirely.

Using a structured workflow for branch management ensures tests are verified before any action, preventing untested code from being merged or discarded, and standardizes cleanup across standard Git workflows.