Sidecar is a terminal-based workspace for running AI coding agents alongside file trees, task issues, Git diffs, and Jira or GitHub resources in split panes. Developers use it to monitor agent sessions, inspect files and changes, manage workspaces, and handle tasks without leaving one shell. The catalogue entries extend or guide coding-agent workflows used with Sidecar.
Getting it into your agent
One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.
npx agentmods add skills/marcus/sidecar/merge-strategynpx skills add marcus/sidecar --skill merge-strategygit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/marcus/sidecarWrote this? Show the measurements
A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/marcus/sidecar/merge-strategy)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/marcus/sidecar/merge-strategy"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/marcus/sidecar/merge-strategy.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>What it costs to keep this loaded
Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5 | $0.00063 | $0.02071 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00032 | $0.01035 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00013 | $0.00414 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00006 | $0.00207 |
Grade A, and why
merge-strategy scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 5d ago.
A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.
Nothing flagged
None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 226 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Merge Strategy Configuration
This skill covers sidecar's git merge and pull operations, their current implementation, known gaps, and recommended configuration patterns.
Current Implementation
Git Status Plugin Pull Strategies
Location: internal/plugins/gitstatus/pull_menu.go, internal/plugins/gitstatus/remote.go
The git-status plugin offers four pull strategies via a modal menu:
| Strategy | Command | Use Case |
|---|---|---|
| Pull (merge) | git pull |
Creates merge commit, preserves branch topology |
| Pull (rebase) | git pull --rebase |
Replays local commits on top of upstream |
| Pull (fast-forward only) | git pull --ff-only |
Only pulls if fast-forward possible (safest) |
| Pull (rebase + autostash) | git pull --rebase --autostash |
Rebase with automatic stash/unstash |
Workspace Plugin Merge Workflows
Location: internal/plugins/workspace/merge.go
PR Workflow:
- Push branch to remote
- Create PR via
gh pr create - Wait for PR merge (polling)
- Cleanup: delete worktree, branches, pull base
Direct Merge (No PR) at merge.go:430-498:
1. git fetch origin <baseBranch>
2. git checkout <baseBranch>
3. git pull origin <baseBranch>
4. git merge <branch> --no-ff -m "Merge branch '<branch>'" // Hardcoded --no-ff
5. git push origin <baseBranch>
Post-Merge Pull at merge.go:500-551:
- When on base branch:
git pull --ff-only origin <branch>(hardcoded) - Otherwise:
git fetch+git update-ref
Divergence Resolution at merge.go:644-705:
- Rebase option:
git pull --rebase origin <branch> - Merge option:
git pull origin <branch>
Known Issues and Gaps
- No configurable defaults -- users must select strategy every time
- Limited merge strategies -- direct merge hardcoded to
--no-ff, missing--ff,--ff-only,--squash, rebase-based integration - No squash merge support -- no clean-history option for main branch
- Hardcoded commit messages --
fmt.Sprintf("Merge branch '%s'", branch), no templates - Missing safety options -- no GPG signing, no
--verify-signatures, no--force-with-lease - Autostash inconsistency -- available for pull-rebase but not post-merge pull or divergence resolution
- No upstream tracking config -- remote always
origin, no configurable tracking - Limited conflict recovery -- only abort or dismiss, no continue/skip rebase
- No interactive rebase -- no squash/reorder/edit before merge
What this file has done since we first saw it
Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.
- 5d ago First seen · 226 lines · 63 tokens per session scan A 4f3a164cec71
merge-strategy is a skill published in the GitHub repository marcus/sidecar (1,055 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed MIT. It adds 63 tokens to every session and 2,071 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.
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