# Cherry Pick Commit > Cherry-pick (backport/forward-port) one or more commits from one branch onto another, creating a fresh branch and opening a pull request that follows the repository's conventions. Use this whenever the user wants to move, port, backport, or cherry-pick a commit or a merged PR to a release/servicing branch (e.g. "cherry-pick the latest dev commit to 7.9.x", "backport #7576 to release/8.0.x", "port that fix to the release branch"), even if they don't say the exact word "cherry-pick". If the cherry-pick hits conflicts, STOP and report back instead of trying to resolve them, unless the user explicitly asked you to resolve conflicts. - Skill: `nuget/cherry-pick-commit` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add nuget/cherry-pick-commit` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/nuget/cherry-pick-commit/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Docs & Writing - Author: nuget (https://skillmd.com/u/nuget) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/nuget/cherry-pick-commit --- # Cherry-pick a commit A fast way to cherry-pick (backport) a commit from one branch onto another — usually a fix from the development branch to a release/servicing branch. It keeps the happy path quick and the unhappy path safe: the usual failure modes are branching off a **stale local copy** of the target, silently resolving a conflict the wrong way, or forgetting to reference the original PR. A conflict should stop you and surface the problem, never turn into a guess. ## What you need before starting Figure these two things out first (from the user's request, then by inspecting the repo): 1. **Source** — which commit(s) to cherry-pick. Common phrasings: - "the latest commit on dev" → the tip of `origin/` (after fetching). Do **not** trust the local branch; resolve it against `origin`. - a PR number (e.g. "#7576") → the squash-merge commit for that PR on the source branch. - an explicit SHA or range. 2. **Target** — the branch to cherry-pick *onto* (e.g. "7.9.x"). Users abbreviate release branches; map the shorthand to the real ref by listing remote branches (a name like `7.9.x` usually means `release/7.9.x` or `release-7.9.x`). Confirm the ref actually exists on `origin` before continuing. If either is genuinely ambiguous, ask. Otherwise proceed — this is meant to be low-friction. ## The workflow Run these steps in order. Interpret output at each step; don't blindly chain commands, because a bad early step (dirty tree, wrong target) makes everything after it wrong. ### 1. Preflight ```bash git status --porcelain # must be empty — a dirty tree makes cherry-pick/abort unsafe git fetch origin --prune # get the true tips of source and target git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD # remember where you started, to return here later ``` If the working tree is dirty, stop and tell the user (offer to stash). Fetching matters: release branches and dev move independently, and a local `release/*` is frequently behind `origin`. ### 2. Resolve the real refs ```bash git rev-parse --short origin/ # -> the source SHA, if "latest on dev" git branch -r | grep -i # confirm the target ref name on origin git branch -r --contains | grep # is it ALREADY on the target? ``` If the commit is already contained in the target branch, don't cherry-pick — report that it's already there. Cherry-picking an already-present change produces an empty or redundant commit. ### 3. Create the working branch off the *remote* target Name it using the repository's branch convention. Many repos (including NuGet.Client) use `dev--`; check the repo's instructions/AGENTS.md if unsure, and get the handle from `gh api user --jq .login`. Make the topic descriptive of the backport, e.g. `cherrypick--`. ```bash git checkout -b dev--cherrypick-- origin/ ``` Branching off `origin/` (not the local copy) is the single most important correctness step — it guarantees you build on the real head of the release branch. ### 4. Cherry-pick Use `-x` so the new commit records "(cherry picked from commit …)". Preserving the original commit message (including the `(#NNNN)` PR suffix) is what lets a reviewer follow the change back to its origin — this is an explicit expectation for release-branch commits in some repos, so keep it. ```bash git cherry-pick -x ``` For a range, use `git cherry-pick -x ^..`. ### 5. Branch on the result - **Success** (exit 0, clean apply): continue to step 6. - **Conflict / failure** (non-zero exit, or `git status` shows unmerged paths): **do not resolve it yourself** unless the user asked you to. Capture which files conflicted, then undo cleanly and report: ```bash git cherry-pick --abort git checkout git branch -D dev--cherrypick-- # remove the aborted branch ``` Then STOP and report back using the failure template below. A conflict means the target branch has diverged in the touched code; that needs a human decision, and silently picking a side is how backports introduce regressions. ### 6. Finish the PR (success path only) Only reformat if you had to resolve conflicts by hand — a clean cherry-pick reproduces already-formatted, already-reviewed content byte-for-byte, so running a full format is wasted work and can create spurious diffs. If the repo mandates formatting and you *did* edit files, run its formatter now. **Delegate the push and PR creation to the repo's `create-pr` skill** (`.copilot/skills/create-pr`) rather than re-implementing them here — that skill owns the branch push, PR template, draft default, `gh` invocation, and error handling, and keeping one source of truth means backport PRs stay consistent with every other PR in the repo. Hand it these backport-specific parameters: - **Base branch**: the target branch (``) — override its default of `dev`. - **Title**: the original commit subject, unchanged, so the `(#NNNN)` link is preserved. - **Body**: the backport content described below. - Backport PRs don't need review and merge once the build is green (see `docs/workflow.md`), so create it ready (non-draft) unless the user says otherwise. Then report the resulting PR URL. ## PR description (what to feed the `create-pr` skill) The `create-pr` skill builds the body from the PR template; your job is to give it backport-specific content that makes it obvious this is a port, not a new change: - State that it's a cherry-pick of the original PR/commit onto the target branch, and link the original PR (`#NNNN`). - Reuse the original PR's linked issue, keeping the same prefix it used (`Fixes:`/`Progress:`). - Tick checklist items that genuinely apply (e.g. tests are "added" if the original commit carried them; they came along with the pick). ## Failure report template When a cherry-pick fails, after aborting and cleaning up, report like this so the user can decide what to do: ``` Cherry-pick FAILED — conflicts, nothing pushed. - Source: "" (from /#) - Target: - Conflicting files: - path/one.cs - path/two.cs The target branch has diverged in these files. I aborted the cherry-pick and deleted the temporary branch, so your tree is back on and unchanged. Want me to retry and resolve the conflicts, or would you prefer to handle it manually? ``` ## Notes and edge cases - **Never rewrite history or force-push** on shared branches. - **One commit per PR** is the usual release-branch norm (so a single revert is clean). Only batch multiple commits into one PR if the user asks. - **Merge commits** need `-m 1` to pick the mainline parent; prefer picking the underlying squash commit instead when possible. - **Empty result** ("The previous cherry-pick is now empty"): the change is already present — run `git cherry-pick --skip`/`--abort` as appropriate and report it's already in the target.