Worktree Safety

Worktree Safety Skill

Experimental or risky work should never happen directly on main. This skill ensures a branch exists before any code changes are made.

When to use this skill

• Starting a new feature or task that will take more than one commit
• User says "try this", "experiment", "test out an idea"
• About to make changes that are hard to reverse
• Working on something that might break existing tests

Do NOT use for: reading files, running read-only commands, answering questions.

Workflow

Step 1 — Check current branch

git branch --show-current
git status --short

If already on a feature branch (not main or master): report branch name and skip to Step 3. If on main or master: proceed to Step 2.

Step 2 — Create branch

Ask the user for a branch name OR suggest one based on the task:

git checkout -b task/<suggested-name>

Naming convention: task/<short-slug> — e.g., task/fix-scope-guard, task/add-plan-skill.

Verify:

git branch --show-current

Step 3 — Baseline test

bash core/tests/hooks/run-hook-tests.sh 2>&1 | tail -3

Report:

• If tests pass: "Baseline: N tests passing. Safe to proceed."
• If tests fail: "Baseline failing before changes — investigate first. List failures."

Do not proceed with changes if baseline is failing. Ask user whether to continue.

Step 4 — Confirm ready

Report:

Branch: <branch-name>
Baseline: [N tests passing | FAILING — list]
Safe to proceed: [YES | NO]

Constraints

• Never create a branch named main, master, develop, or release/*.
• Never skip the baseline test — you need to know what was already broken.
• If the repo has no test suite, report that explicitly and proceed.
• If git worktree is available and the user wants isolation, suggest it: git worktree add .worktrees/<branch-name> -b <branch-name>