Repo Hygiene

Repo Hygiene

Use this repository skill to find and clear the debris that builds up in a repository worked through jig. It audits first and always reports; it removes only what the user names.

This is the repository's own housekeeping. For the state of the jig installation, use jig-doctor, which is read-only and never deletes.

Why Merged Branches Look Unmerged

develop-task-flow finishes with git merge --squash, so the task branch tip never becomes an ancestor of develop. Git therefore reports every finished branch as unmerged:

git branch --merged develop     # finds almost nothing
git branch --no-merged develop  # lists work that shipped months ago

Never decide a branch is safe to delete with --merged. Under a squash flow it answers a different question than the one being asked.

Ask whether the branch's content is already in develop instead:

git diff --quiet develop...<branch>

An empty diff means everything on that branch is already reachable from develop, whatever the SHAs look like. That is the safe signal. A non-empty diff means the branch still holds something, so it is reported as unfinished and never offered for deletion.

Checks

Each check reports on its own. A repository that fails none is a normal outcome, not a defect.

Safety Rules

• Never delete anything the user has not explicitly named in this run. A list is not consent.
• Never touch main, develop, or the current branch, even when a check matches them.
• Never delete a branch whose diff against develop is non-empty, and never offer one.
• Never delete a remote branch. This skill works on the local clone; git push origin --delete is out of scope.
• Never delete or move a tag or a GitHub release. Mismatches are reported for a human to settle.
• Never touch .jig/. It is project-owned; only version-rubric writes the rubric file.
• Do not force push, and do not run any command that rewrites history.
• Do not modify tracked files. The only writes are deletions the user confirmed.
• Report the exact command for anything that cannot run, rather than approximating it.
• Preserve unrelated user changes.

Procedure

1. Inspect:
   • git status --short --branch
   • git fetch origin --prune --tags
   • git branch --list
2. Classify every local task branch by content, not by merge state:
   • for each feature/*, fix/*, chore/*, hotfix/*: git diff --quiet develop...<branch>
   • empty diff → shipped; non-empty → unfinished
3. List branches belonging to retired flows and say which model they came from.
4. Report stale remote-tracking refs. git fetch --prune in step 1 already cleared them; name what it removed.
5. Compare tags with releases, resolving the GitHub profile the way github-release does before any gh command. Skip this check with a one-line note when gh is unavailable.
6. Check that the resolved rubric file is tracked and committed.
7. Check the release invariant: git merge-base --is-ancestor origin/main origin/develop. A failure means a hotfix landed on main and never returned to develop, so github-release cannot promote until git merge main runs. Report it first; it blocks more than anything else on this list.
8. Find .bak leftovers and payload files no longer listed in the manifest.
9. Present the findings grouped by check, with counts and the exact deletion command for each group.
10. Ask which groups to clear. Delete only those, one group at a time, echoing what was removed.
11. Report.

Final Report

Write the report in the language the repository already uses.

## Repo Hygiene

- Branches: <n> shipped, <n> unfinished, <n> from retired flows
- Deleted: none | <list>
- Remote-tracking refs pruned: <n>
- Tags without releases: <list or none>
- Rubric: committed | untracked | uncommitted changes
- Release invariant: ok | **main is ahead of develop, next release blocked**
- Leftovers: <list or none>
- Skipped checks and why: <list or none>
- Next: none | <action>