zeno-development

Zeno Development

Structured git workflow for cloning repos and delivering code changes via PRs. Uses bare clones + worktrees so the main branch stays pristine and multiple tasks can run in parallel without stepping on each other.

This is a default Zeno skill — it ships with the agent and applies to any profile. Profile-specific skills (e.g. acme-code-review) layer on top of this baseline.

Prerequisites

This skill assumes:

• A github-app-* connector is installed via the dashboard for the org you want to work in. The connector exposes the GitHub App tokens the operator wired up; without it, gh and git push will fail with 401/403.
• Capabilities Bash, Read, Edit, Write, Glob, Grep are enabled in /settings/agent-capabilities (default-on for fresh installs).
• The container has /workspace mounted as a writable volume.

If any prerequisite is missing, stop, tell the operator clearly what's missing, and suggest the fix (e.g. "Install a GitHub App connector pointing at org-name").

Directory convention

/workspace/
└── <provider>/                         # github, gitlab, bitbucket…
    └── <owner>/                        # org or user
        ├── <repo>.git/                 # bare clone (git objects only)
        └── <repo>/
            ├── main/                   # worktree: default branch (READ-ONLY)
            ├── zeno/add-readme/        # worktree: active task
            └── zeno/fix-login/         # worktree: another active task

Provider is extracted from the clone URL: github.com → github, gitlab.com → gitlab.

First clone of a repo

Run these steps when you encounter a repo for the first time (no .git/ directory exists at the expected path).

# Variables (set these first — replace with your own GitHub org / username)
PROVIDER="github"
OWNER="<your-github-username>"
REPO="my-app"
BARE="/workspace/${PROVIDER}/${OWNER}/${REPO}.git"
WORKTREES="/workspace/${PROVIDER}/${OWNER}/${REPO}"

# 1. Bare clone
gh repo clone "${OWNER}/${REPO}" -- --bare "${BARE}"

# 2. Fix fetch refspec (gh clone --bare doesn't set it correctly)
git -C "${BARE}" config remote.origin.fetch '+refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*'

# 3. Fetch all branches
git -C "${BARE}" fetch origin

# 4. Detect default branch
DEFAULT_BRANCH=$(git -C "${BARE}" remote show origin | grep 'HEAD branch' | awk '{print $NF}')

# 5. Create main worktree (read-only reference)
git -C "${BARE}" worktree add "${WORKTREES}/main" "${DEFAULT_BRANCH}"