What is create-branch?

A workflow for creating or checking the working Git branch before changing code. Git branches are separate lines of work that keep unfinished changes away from protected branches such as main.

Starting work on a Dispatch ticket, verifying an existing gaffer branch, or creating the required prefixed branch when none was prepared.

It helps prevent edits from being made directly on a protected branch and handles the difference between a prepared worktree and a standalone project.

create-branch — Skill for Claude Code and Codex by tmj-90/gaffer

Install

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.

Any agent

npx skills add tmj-90/gaffer --skill create-branch

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/tmj-90/gaffer

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote 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.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/tmj-90/gaffer/create-branch/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/tmj-90/gaffer/create-branch)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/tmj-90/gaffer/create-branch"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/tmj-90/gaffer/create-branch/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

Your own site · 80×15

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/tmj-90/gaffer/create-branch"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/tmj-90/gaffer/create-branch.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session 50 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.

When invoked 1,061 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.

Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.

Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.

Token cost

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 5.1	$0.00050	$0.01061
Opus 5.5	$0.00020	$0.00424
Sonnet 5.5	$0.00010	$0.00212
Haiku 4.5	$0.00005	$0.00106

Measured 20d ago against content hash 5397a6351945, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

create-branch 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 20d 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.

runner/skills/create-branch/SKILL.md · 74 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 74 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Get onto the working branch

All work happens on a gaffer/ feature branch, never on a protected branch (main, master, release/*). In the factory the runner has already created that branch in a throwaway git worktree and put you in it, so this skill is a short verification, not a branching step. Only outside the factory do you create the branch yourself.

Factory path — verify, do not create

Read the expected branch and path from the REPO ACCESS BOUNDARY block of your prompt ("WRITABLE repos … on branch 'gaffer/ticket--…'").
Check where you are: git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD must print exactly that branch name. HEAD (detached), a protected name, or a different gaffer/ branch means the environment is not what the factory guarantees: mark_ticket_blocked ("on , expected ") and stop (on a resume, where that call is refused, request_decision with the ticket_id and severity human_required instead). Do not "fix" it with git switch -c or git checkout -b — a new branch diverges from the one the runner will push and review.
Check the tree against the kind of run you are in:
- Fresh delivery — git status --porcelain should be empty. Runner files (.claude/, CLAUDE.factory.md, .mcp.json, the node_modules symlink) are git-excluded and will not show. If other uncommitted or untracked files are present, you did not create them: mark_ticket_blocked ("worktree dirty on arrival: ") rather than building on unknown state.
- Rework (your prompt shows why a previous attempt was rejected) — the branch carries the previous attempt's commits. That is expected: git log --oneline <default>..HEAD shows them. Build on them and address every rejection reason.
- Resume (your prompt says you are RESUMING) — prior work may be committed AND uncommitted. A dirty tree is expected: read git status and git diff, then continue. Never discard it.
Proceed. Implement on this branch and commit to it (git add -A && git commit -m "deliver #<n>: <summary>"). Never push or open a PR: after its gates the runner does that itself when the operator has enabled it.

Read the full file on GitHub · 74 lines

Changes

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.

20d ago Changed · -27 lines 5397a6351945
1mo ago First seen · 101 lines · 50 tokens per session scan A 22b65a840b7b

Subscribe to this mod's changes

create-branch is a skill published in the GitHub repository tmj-90/gaffer (2 stars, last pushed 20d ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 50 tokens to every session and 1,061 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5.5. 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 2026-08-31.

Autonomous Agents Git and workflow ai-agents ai-coding-assistant ai-governance anthropic claude

code-review-loop

Iterative review+fix loop for BASESHA..HEAD: generate findings, apply accepted fixes, run checks, commit, and re-review up to 3 iterations or until clean.

besimple-oss/broccoli · 40 tokens

dedup

Dedupe-only pass for BASESHA..HEAD: remove duplicate code introduced by the diff or reuse existing shared utils; applies changes + commits.

besimple-oss/broccoli · 32 tokens

plan-critique-loop

Critique and revise an existing plan doc up to 3 iterations, using accept/reject triage and stopping early when no important feedback remains. Use when refining a plan/.md before implementation.

besimple-oss/broccoli · 45 tokens

besimple-tiny-broccoli

Small-change wrapper: implement → run repo checks → atomic commit → run dedup (BASESHA..HEAD).

besimple-oss/broccoli · 30 tokens

claude-simplify-wrapper

Run Claude's built-in /simplify skill on BASESHA..HEAD, validate checks, and commit.

besimple-oss/broccoli · 28 tokens

working-in-worktrees

Decides when agent work needs an isolated git worktree and how to create, enter, and clean one up safely. Use when starting code changes in a checkout that may be shared with another agent, dispatching a Linear task, executing a spec, or running any parallel work that mutates tracked files.

dork-labs/dorkos · 66 tokens