cherry-pick-prod

name

cherry-pick-prod

description

Use when a specific fix that's already on main needs to land on a production/release branch without dragging along everything else — a hotfix to backport, a "cherry-pick this commit onto release-2.4", a "we need just that one PR on prod" request. Reach for this whenever someone wants to port one or a few commits to a release branch and open a PR for it, especially before doing it by hand in their main checkout, which pollutes their working tree and routinely leaves conflict markers committed or loses the original commit's provenance.

Cherry-pick to Prod

Overview

Backporting a fix to a release branch is a small operation with sharp edges. Done in your normal checkout it stomps your working tree, mixes the backport with whatever you had in progress, and — if a conflict shows up — tempts you to commit a half-resolved file with <<<<<<< markers still in it. And a cherry-pick that drops the -x provenance line leaves the release branch with a commit nobody can trace back to its origin on main.

This skill does the backport in an isolated git worktree so your main checkout is never touched, cherry-picks with -x so every backported commit records the SHA it came from, pushes the branch, and opens a PR from a template that states what's being backported, why, and the source commits. If a conflict can't be resolved cleanly it aborts and cleans up the worktree rather than leaving a broken tree or stray markers behind. On success or failure, the temporary worktree is removed — it never lingers.

The discipline: the operation is isolated, traceable, and self-cleaning. You should be able to run it, get a PR link, and have your own checkout exactly as you left it.

When to Use

Reach for this when:

• A fix is merged to main and needs to ride to a release/production branch (release-*, prod, hotfix/*) as its own PR.