superpowers-finishing-a-development-branch

To finish a development branch while preserving the working tree, you need a deterministic workflow that runs tests, reports failures, and marks the branch as finished without altering your current working directory. This ensures a stable state for review and final merge.

The best way to ensure tests pass before merging a git branch is to enforce strict post-merge discipline using a CI-driven validation process. This provides an auditable finish process that runs tests and reports any failures before the branch is marked as complete.

You should preserve the working directory after a branch finishes to allow for seamless code review and final handoffs. Keeping the working tree intact post-completion provides a stable, repeatable state for developers to verify the implementation before the actual merge.

Yes, you can use this branch management workflow for CI-driven validation. It specifically applies to software development workflows that require strict post-merge discipline, implementing an auditable finish process that validates tests and reports failures automatically.

If tests fail when ending a development branch, the deterministic finish process reports the specific failures and halts the completion. This strict branch hygiene ensures that only fully validated implementations are marked as finished while keeping the working tree intact for fixes.