GitWand: Command for Claude Code

Preview merge conflicts before merging

Use this workflow to assess merge risk BEFORE actually merging a branch. This avoids surprises and lets you plan conflict resolution in advance.

Workflow

1. Identify the source branch

Determine which branch you want to merge into the current branch. Example: merging feature/auth into main.

2. Simulate the merge (without modifying the working tree)

git merge --no-commit --no-ff <source-branch> 2>&1 || true

If conflicts arise, Git leaves conflict markers in the working tree without committing.

3. Analyze with GitWand

npx gitwand resolve --json --dry-run

The --dry-run flag ensures no files are modified. The JSON output shows:

• Total conflict count per file
• How many GitWand can auto-resolve (and with what confidence)
• Which hunks are complex and need human/LLM attention

4. Assess the risk

From the JSON output, evaluate:

Metric	Low risk	Medium risk	High risk
Auto-resolvable %	> 80%	50-80%	< 50%
Complex hunks	0-1	2-5	> 5
Files affected	1-3	4-10	> 10

5. Decision

If low risk: proceed with npx gitwand resolve to auto-resolve, then handle remaining hunks.

If medium/high risk: review the complex hunks first. The explanation field in each unresolved hunk describes WHY it's complex (overlapping edits, both sides modified the same function, etc.).

6. Abort if needed

git merge --abort

This cleanly restores the working tree to its pre-merge state.

Example: full preview flow

# Start the merge simulation
git merge --no-commit --no-ff feature/auth

# Analyze conflicts
npx gitwand resolve --json --dry-run | jq '.summary'

# If acceptable, resolve for real
npx gitwand resolve

# Handle remaining conflicts manually, then
git add -A && git commit

# If not acceptable, abort
git merge --abort

Notes

• This workflow works for both git merge and git rebase conflicts
• GitWand's format-aware resolvers (JSON, YAML, lockfiles, imports) often resolve conflicts that look complex at the text level but are trivial at the semantic level
• The .gitwandrc config file controls resolution policies — check it before previewing if the repo has one