git-safety

Git Safety Skill

When to use: Any git operation that could lose work — pull, push, merge, rebase, branch management, conflict resolution.

Core doctrine

1. Always pull (merge). git pull defaults to merge. Never use --rebase.
2. Never rebase published history. Rebase rewrites commits other people have cloned. Use merge.
3. Never force-push. --force overwrites remote history. Pull first, then push.
4. Never commit on main. Create a feature branch. Always.

Protected operations and alternatives

Dangerous	Safe alternative
git rebase main	git pull origin main (merge)
git pull --rebase	git pull (merge)
git push --force	git pull origin branch && git push
git branch -D feature	git branch -d feature (safe delete)
git reset --hard HEAD~1	git revert HEAD or git stash
git checkout .	git stash

Conflict resolution

When merge conflicts happen:

1. Understand both sides' intent — don't blindly pick "ours" or "theirs"
2. Combine compatible changes — if both sides add different things, keep both
3. Escalate competing changes — if both sides change the same logic differently, get both authors involved
4. Run tests before committing the merge resolution
5. If tests fail after resolution — escalate, don't guess

Branch workflow

• One branch per logical task
• Branch names: feat/description, fix/description, chore/description
• Delete branches after merge
• Keep branches short-lived — days, not weeks

Override escape hatches

For rare cases where you genuinely need the dangerous operation:

Env var	Overrides
PAW_ALLOW_REBASE=1	git rebase, git pull --rebase (local unpublished only)
PAW_ALLOW_FORCE_PUSH=1	git push --force (never to main)

Set the env var, run the command, unset. You can, but you have to mean it.