| name | prepare-branch-context |
| description | Analyze the current branch's diff from main and related PR to build context for followup requests. Triggers on "prepare context", "branch context", "catch me up", "what's on this branch". |
| user-invocable | true |
Prepare Branch Context
Build a comprehensive understanding of the current branch so you can handle followup requests with full context.
Steps
-
Identify the current branch and base branch:
git branch --show-current
git merge-base HEAD main
-
Gather the diff from main:
git diff main...HEAD --stat
git diff main...HEAD
Read through the full diff carefully. Understand what files were changed, added, or removed, and what the changes do.
-
Review the commit history on this branch:
git log main..HEAD --oneline
Read commit messages to understand the progression of changes.
-
Check for a related PR:
gh pr list --head "$(git branch --show-current)" --json number,title,body,url,state,comments --jq '.[0]'
If a PR exists, read its title, description, and comments for additional context (acceptance criteria, discussion, review feedback).
-
Summarize your understanding to the user:
- What this branch does (high-level purpose)
- Key files and areas of the codebase affected
- Notable decisions or patterns visible in the changes
- Any open review comments or discussion from the PR
- Current state (clean, uncommitted changes, etc.)
-
Signal readiness: Tell the user you're ready for followup questions or tasks related to this branch.
Rules
- Do NOT make any changes to files. This skill is read-only.
- Read the actual diff content, not just the stat summary. You need to understand the code changes.
- If there's no PR, that's fine — just skip that step and note it.
- If the diff is very large, focus on understanding the overall structure first, then read key files in detail.
- Keep the summary concise but thorough enough that you could confidently make changes to this branch.
- If the branch is
main or has no divergence from main, tell the user there's nothing to analyze.
