merge-pr

name	merge-pr
description	Safely merge PR with verification and Linear integration. **ALWAYS use when** the user says 'merge the PR', 'merge this', 'ship it', or wants to merge an approved pull request. Runs tests, checks CI, verifies approvals, squash merges, cleans up branches, and moves Linear ticket to Done.
disable-model-invocation	false
allowed-tools	Bash(linearis *), Bash(git *), Bash(gh *), Read
version	1.0.0

Merge Pull Request

Safely merges a PR after comprehensive verification, with Linear integration and automated cleanup.

Prerequisites

# Project setup + orch-monitor daemon liveness (REQUIRED — Phase 6 consumes webhook events)
if [[ -f "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/check-project-setup.sh" ]]; then
  "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/check-project-setup.sh" || exit 1
fi

Branch Protection — Safety Rules

Read and follow the safety rules in "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/references/merge-blocker-diagnosis.md" — specifically the "Safety Rules" section. Summary: NEVER use --admin, --force, or any flag that bypasses branch protection. Always resolve blockers legitimately or escalate with specifics.

Configuration

Read team configuration from .catalyst/config.json:

CONFIG_FILE=".catalyst/config.json"
[[ ! -f "$CONFIG_FILE" ]] && CONFIG_FILE=".claude/config.json"
TEAM_KEY=$(jq -r '.catalyst.linear.teamKey // "PROJ"' "$CONFIG_FILE")
TEST_CMD=$(jq -r '.catalyst.pr.testCommand // "make test"' "$CONFIG_FILE")

Process:

1. Identify PR to merge

If argument provided:

• Use that PR number: /merge_pr 123

If no argument:

# Try current branch
gh pr view --json number,url,title,state,mergeable 2>/dev/null

If no PR on current branch:

gh pr list --limit 10 --json number,title,headRefName,state

Ask: "Which PR would you like to merge? (enter number)"

2. Get PR details

gh pr view $pr_number --json \
  number,url,title,state,mergeable,mergeStateStatus,\
  baseRefName,headRefName,reviewDecision

Extract:

• PR number, URL, title
• Mergeable status
• Base branch (usually main)
• Head branch (feature branch)
• Review decision (APPROVED, REVIEW_REQUIRED, etc.)

3. Verify PR is open and mergeable

state=$(gh pr view $pr_number --json state -q .state)
mergeable=$(gh pr view $pr_number --json mergeable -q .mergeable)

If PR not OPEN:

❌ PR #$pr_number is $state

Only open PRs can be merged.

If not mergeable (CONFLICTING):

❌ PR has merge conflicts

Resolve conflicts first:
  gh pr checkout $pr_number
  git fetch origin $base_branch
  git merge origin/$base_branch
  # ... resolve conflicts ...
  git push

Exit with error.

4. Check if head branch is up-to-date with base

# Checkout PR branch
gh pr checkout $pr_number

# Fetch latest base
base_branch=$(gh pr view $pr_number --json baseRefName -q .baseRefName)
git fetch origin $base_branch

# Check if behind
if git log HEAD..origin/$base_branch --oneline | grep -q .; then
    echo "Branch is behind $base_branch"
fi

If behind:

# Auto-rebase
git rebase origin/$base_branch

# Check for conflicts
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
    echo "❌ Rebase conflicts"
    git rebase --abort
    exit 1
fi

# Push rebased branch
git push --force-with-lease

If conflicts during rebase:

❌ Rebase conflicts detected

Conflicting files:
  $(git diff --name-only --diff-filter=U)

Resolve manually:
  1. Fix conflicts in listed files
  2. git add <resolved-files>
  3. git rebase --continue
  4. git push --force-with-lease
  5. Run /catalyst-dev:merge-pr again

Exit with error.

5. Run local tests

Read test command from config:

test_cmd=$(jq -r '.catalyst.pr.testCommand // "make test"' .catalyst/config.json)

Execute tests:

echo "Running tests: $test_cmd"
if ! $test_cmd; then
    echo "❌ Tests failed"
    exit 1
fi

If tests fail:

❌ Local tests failed

Fix failing tests before merge:
  $test_cmd

Or skip tests (not recommended):
  /catalyst-dev:merge-pr $pr_number --skip-tests

Exit with error (unless --skip-tests flag provided).

6. Diagnose and resolve merge blockers — reactive PR lifecycle

Read and follow the full workflow in "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/references/merge-blocker-diagnosis.md". The wake-up mechanism here is the canonical "Reactive PR lifecycle" pattern from monitor-events (Pattern 3, CTL-228) — a single wait-for that fires on any of: PR merged, PR closed, CI failure, review changes-requested, or push to the base branch. Each wake-up is paired with an authoritative gh api REST re-check; the event tells the agent what changed, gh api tells it the current truth.

Why a multi-event filter and not just github.pr.merged: most of the time between PR-create and PR-merge is spent on CI, review, and base-branch churn — not waiting on a clean merge to land. Subscribing only to the merge event means the agent learns nothing from a check failure or a changes-requested review until the 600-second timeout fires, at which point it falls back to REST polling via gh api. The disjunctive filter restores event-driven dispatch for those cases.

# Two-phase compliant cadence loop — see [[wait-for-github]]. The 600s timeout
# serves as a fallback cadence; the authoritative REST check runs on every wake-up.
REPO=$(gh repo view --json nameWithOwner --jq '.nameWithOwner')
BASE_BRANCH=$(gh api "repos/${REPO}/pulls/${pr_number}" --jq '.base.ref')
ITER=0
MAX_ITER=20

while [ $ITER -lt $MAX_ITER ]; do
  ITER=$((ITER + 1))

  # Reactive multi-event subscription. wait-for is a no-op on event arrival;
  # on timeout we fall through to the authoritative re-check below. The
  # 600-second timeout is the fallback cadence when no events arrive (e.g.
  # daemon down).
  EVENT_JSON=$(catalyst-events wait-for \
    --filter '
      (.attributes."event.name" == "github.pr.merged" and .attributes."vcs.pr.number" == '"$pr_number"') or
      (.attributes."event.name" == "github.pr.closed" and .attributes."vcs.pr.number" == '"$pr_number"') or
      (.attributes."event.name" == "github.check_suite.completed"
         and (.body.payload.prNumbers // [] | index('"$pr_number"') != null)
         and (.attributes."cicd.pipeline.run.conclusion" == "failure" or .attributes."cicd.pipeline.run.conclusion" == "timed_out")) or
      (.attributes."event.name" == "github.pr_review.submitted"
         and .attributes."vcs.pr.number" == '"$pr_number"'
         and (.body.payload.state == "changes_requested"
              or (.body.payload.state == "commented" and (.body.payload.author.type // "") == "Bot"))) or
      (.attributes."event.name" == "github.push" and .attributes."vcs.ref.name" == "refs/heads/'"$BASE_BRANCH"'")
    ' \
    --timeout 600 || true)

  # MANDATORY authoritative REST re-check on every wake-up.
  STATE=$(gh api "repos/${REPO}/pulls/${pr_number}" \
    --jq 'if .merged then "MERGED" elif .state == "closed" then "CLOSED" else "OPEN" end' \
    2>/dev/null || echo "OPEN")
  if [ "$STATE" = "MERGED" ]; then break; fi
  if [ "$STATE" = "CLOSED" ]; then
    echo "❌ PR #$pr_number was closed without merging"
    exit 1
  fi

  EVENT=$(echo "$EVENT_JSON" | jq -r '.attributes."event.name" // ""')
  case "$EVENT" in
    github.check_suite.completed)
      # CI failed — diagnose via merge-blocker-diagnosis.md, push fix.
      ;;
    github.pr_review.submitted)
      # Bot reviewers (Codex, claude-code-review) are addressable inline;
      # humans require operator action. body.payload.author.type is "Bot" or "User".
      # Codex submits inline-thread reviews as state="commented", not
      # "changes_requested" — handle both via /catalyst-dev:review-comments,
      # which addresses the code AND resolves threads via the GraphQL
      # resolveReviewThread mutation.
      AUTHOR_TYPE=$(echo "$EVENT_JSON" | jq -r '.body.payload.author.type // "User"')
      if [ "$AUTHOR_TYPE" = "Bot" ]; then
        /catalyst-dev:review-comments "$pr_number"
      fi
      ;;
    github.push)
      gh pr update-branch "$pr_number" || true
      ;;
    "")
      # Timeout — gh api check above confirmed we're not merged.
      # Diagnose blockers per the reference doc.
      ;;
  esac
done

Why every wake-up runs gh api: if the orch-monitor daemon is down, no GitHub webhook events flow into the log and wait-for blocks until timeout (600 s). The gh api REST call after timeout is the safety net that keeps merge confirmation correct even when the event stream has dropped. Same rule applies on real event arrivals — events are wake-up triggers, never the source of truth. Use gh api (REST), never gh pr view --json (GraphQL).

The reference doc contains:

• The GraphQL query (merge state + CI checks + review threads + reviews in one call)
• Blocker type table (CLEAN, BEHIND, DIRTY, BLOCKED, DRAFT, UNSTABLE, HAS_HOOKS, UNKNOWN)
• How to decompose BLOCKED into specific causes
• Resolution strategy for each blocker type:

Blocker	Auto-resolution
branch-behind (BEHIND)	gh api -X PUT /repos/{owner}/{repo}/pulls/{n}/update-branch (most repos disable GitHub's auto-update via allow_update_branch: false, so manual update is required), then continue polling
conflicts (DIRTY)	Attempt gh pr checkout && git rebase origin/<base>; if unresolvable, exit non-success with specific files
draft	gh pr ready
ci-failing (UNSTABLE / failing checks)	Analyze failure logs, fix code, push, continue polling
unresolved-threads	Run /review-comments (see review-thread-resolution.md); push fixes; continue polling for new comments
changes-requested	Check if addressed; suggest re-request review
review-required	Cannot fix — exit non-success and report how many approvals needed and who to request
hooks-pending (HAS_HOOKS)	Wait one cadence cycle and re-query
unknown-blocker (UNKNOWN)	Query branch protection rules, report every requirement with status

The outer loop has a MAX_ITER=20 cap to prevent runaway behaviour on a stuck failure mode. Apply per-failure-type fix budgets inside each handler (e.g., max 3 distinct fix attempts for the same CI failure mode). Exit non-success only when a genuine human-gated blocker is identified (unresolvable conflict, required reviewer, branch protection requirement that cannot be satisfied).

When the loop confirms state == "MERGED", capture mergedAt and proceed to step 7.

Signal file write (when invoked from a worker context): if $SIGNAL_FILE is set (oneshot or orchestrator worker), write pr.mergedAt, pr.ciStatus = "merged", and status = "done" to the signal file as soon as state == MERGED is observed:

if [ -n "$SIGNAL_FILE" ] && [ -f "$SIGNAL_FILE" ]; then
  PR_MERGED_AT=$(gh pr view "$PR_NUMBER" --json mergedAt --jq '.mergedAt')
  jq --arg ts "$PR_MERGED_AT" \
    '.pr.ciStatus = "merged" | .pr.mergedAt = $ts | .status = "done" | .updatedAt = $ts | .completedAt = $ts' \
    "$SIGNAL_FILE" > "$SIGNAL_FILE.tmp" && mv "$SIGNAL_FILE.tmp" "$SIGNAL_FILE"
fi

7. Extract ticket reference

branch=$(gh pr view $pr_number --json headRefName -q .headRefName)
title=$(gh pr view $pr_number --json title -q .title)

# From branch using configured team key
if [[ "$branch" =~ ($TEAM_KEY-[0-9]+) ]]; then
    ticket="${BASH_REMATCH[1]}"
fi

# From title if not in branch
if [[ -z "$ticket" ]] && [[ "$title" =~ ($TEAM_KEY-[0-9]+) ]]; then
    ticket="${BASH_REMATCH[1]}"
fi

8. Show merge summary

About to merge:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 PR:       #$pr_number - $title
 From:     $head_branch
 To:       $base_branch
 Commits:  $commit_count
 Files:    $file_count changed
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 Merge:    $mergeStateStatus (CLEAN)
 Reviews:  $review_status
 CI:       $ci_status
 Tests:    ✅ Passed locally
 Ticket:   $ticket (will move to Done)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Merge strategy: Squash and merge

Proceed? [Y/n]:

9. Execute squash merge

gh pr merge $pr_number --squash --delete-branch

Always:

• Squash merge (combines all commits into one)
• Delete remote branch automatically

Capture merge commit SHA:

merge_sha=$(git rev-parse HEAD)

10. Update Linear ticket

If ticket found and not using --no-update:

# Use the shared transition helper (CTL-69). It reads stateMap from
# `.catalyst/config.json`, is idempotent, and silently skips when the
# linearis CLI is not installed.
"${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/linear-transition.sh" \
  --ticket "$ticket_id" --transition done --config .catalyst/config.json

# Then add a comment with PR number, merge commit, and base branch.
# Use `linearis comments usage` for exact syntax. Skip silently if CLI missing.

11. Delete local branch and update base

# Switch to base branch
git checkout $base_branch

# Pull latest (includes merge commit)
git pull origin $base_branch

# Delete local feature branch
git branch -d $head_branch

# Confirm deletion
echo "✅ Deleted local branch: $head_branch"

Always delete local branch - no prompt (remote already deleted).

11a. Update primary worktree

If running in a git worktree, the primary checkout of main may be stale. Update it:

"${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/pull-primary-worktree.sh" --branch "$base_branch"

12. Extract post-merge tasks

Read PR description:

desc_file="thoughts/shared/prs/${pr_number}_description.md"
if [ -f "$desc_file" ]; then
    # Extract "Post-Merge Tasks" section
    tasks=$(sed -n '/## Post-Merge Tasks/,/^##/p' "$desc_file" | grep -E '^\- \[')
fi

If tasks exist:

📋 Post-merge tasks from PR description:
- [ ] Update documentation
- [ ] Monitor error rates in production
- [ ] Notify stakeholders

Save these tasks? [Y/n]:

If yes:

# Save to thoughts
cat > "thoughts/shared/post_merge_tasks/${ticket}_tasks.md" <<EOF
# Post-Merge Tasks: $ticket

Merged: $(date)
PR: #$pr_number

$tasks
EOF

humanlayer thoughts sync

12b. Compound closing ritual (CTL-189 / CTL-813 / CTL-831)

Two learning steps run for every merged ticket, in order:

1. Estimation actuals — invoke /catalyst-dev:compound-estimate $ticket_id. It prompts for the post-merge re-score (CTL-746 scale: XS=1 S=3 M=5 L=8 XL=13) plus two short reflections, appends the weekly compound-log entry (thoughts/shared/retros/estimate/), and offers a corpus refresh when the reference-class corpus is stale. That entry is what refresh-corpus.sh feeds back into reference-class-corpus.json as human ground truth — skipping it is how the loop falls open again.
2. Cross-ticket retro — invoke /catalyst-dev:ticket-retro (no arguments). It regenerates thoughts/shared/retros/ticket/<today>.md over the since-last-retro window (same-day re-runs are cumulative) and refreshes the watch-items the morning briefing surfaces.

Off the critical path: if the user declines, the ticket was never estimated, or either skill errors, log one line and continue — never block the merge ritual on them.

13. Detect Deployments and Report Success

After branch cleanup, check if the merge triggered any deployment workflows:

# Check for workflow runs triggered by the merge commit on the base branch
DEPLOY_RUNS=$(gh run list --branch "$base_branch" --limit 5 --json name,status,workflowName,url \
  --jq '.[] | select(.status == "in_progress" or .status == "queued")' 2>/dev/null)

if [[ -n "$DEPLOY_RUNS" ]]; then
  echo ""
  echo "Active workflow runs detected after merge:"
  gh run list --branch "$base_branch" --limit 5 --json workflowName,status,url \
    --jq '.[] | select(.status == "in_progress" or .status == "queued") | "  - \(.workflowName): \(.status) (\(.url))"'
  echo ""
  echo "Tip: Monitor deployment with:"
  echo "  /loop 3m gh run list --branch $base_branch --limit 3 --json workflowName,status,conclusion --jq '.[]'"
  echo ""
else
  echo ""
  echo "No active deployment workflows detected."
fi

Display the standard success summary after this check:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
✅ PR #$pr_number merged successfully!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Merge details:
  Strategy:     Squash and merge
  Commit:       $merge_sha
  Base branch:  $base_branch (updated)
  Merged by:    @$user

Cleanup:
  Remote branch: $head_branch (deleted)
  Local branch:  $head_branch (deleted)

Linear:
  Ticket:  $ticket → Done ✅
  Comment: Added with merge details

Post-merge tasks: $task_count saved to thoughts/

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Flags

--skip-tests - Skip local test execution

/catalyst-dev:merge-pr 123 --skip-tests

--no-update - Don't update Linear ticket

/catalyst-dev:merge-pr 123 --no-update

--keep-branch - Don't delete local branch

/catalyst-dev:merge-pr 123 --keep-branch

Combined:

/catalyst-dev:merge-pr 123 --skip-tests --no-update

Error Handling

For all errors, provide clear messages with the specific error, what went wrong, and how to fix it. Never give up with a generic message — always diagnose the specific cause and provide actionable next steps.

Fail fast (stop execution):

• Rebase conflicts → show conflicting files, instructions to resolve manually, then re-run /catalyst-dev:merge-pr
• Test failures → show failed tests, suggest fix or --skip-tests
• PR not open/mergeable → show current state

Diagnose and attempt to fix (step 6 blocker loop):

• CI checks failing → analyze failure, attempt code fix, re-push, re-poll
• Unresolved threads → run /review-comments, resolve threads
• Branch behind → rebase and push
• Draft PR → mark as ready
• Changes requested → check if addressed, suggest re-request review
• Infrastructure failures → suggest re-run, provide log URL

Escalate with specifics (never generic):

• Review required → tell user exactly how many approvals needed and who to request
• Unresolvable conflicts → list specific files and what conflicts exist
• Unknown blockers → query branch protection rules and list every requirement with its status

Never suggest:

• Force merge, admin override, or disabling branch protection
• Skipping required checks or reviews
• Any workaround that bypasses the protection rather than satisfying it

Warn but continue (graceful degradation):

• Linearis CLI not found → warn, suggest install, merge proceeds
• Linear API error → warn, merge proceeds
• Branch deletion error → warn, merge already succeeded

Configuration

Uses .catalyst/config.json:

{
  "catalyst": {
    "project": {
      "ticketPrefix": "PROJ"
    },
    "linear": {
      "teamKey": "PROJ",
      "stateMap": {
        "done": "Done"
      }
    },
    "pr": {
      "defaultMergeStrategy": "squash",
      "deleteRemoteBranch": true,
      "deleteLocalBranch": true,
      "updateLinearOnMerge": true,
      "requireApproval": false,
      "requireCI": false,
      "testCommand": "make test"
    }
  }
}

State names are read from stateMap with sensible defaults. See .catalyst/config.json for all keys.

Examples

/catalyst-dev:merge-pr 123              # Merge PR for current branch
/catalyst-dev:merge-pr 123 --skip-tests # Skip local test execution
/catalyst-dev:merge-pr 123 --no-update  # Don't update Linear ticket
/catalyst-dev:merge-pr 123 --keep-branch # Don't delete local branch

Safety Features

Never bypass branch protection:

• No --admin, --force, or any flag that circumvents protection rules
• No disabling or modifying branch protection rules
• No suggesting the user disable protections
• Always satisfy requirements legitimately or escalate with specifics

Fail fast on:

• Merge conflicts (can't auto-resolve)
• Test failures (unless --skip-tests)
• Rebase conflicts
• PR not in mergeable state

Diagnose and fix automatically:

• CI failures → analyze errors, fix code, push, re-poll
• Unresolved review threads → run /review-comments, resolve via GraphQL
• Branch behind → rebase and push
• Draft PR → mark as ready with gh pr ready

Escalate with actionable specifics:

• Review required → who to request, how many needed
• Changes requested → what was asked, whether commits address it
• Unknown blockers → full branch protection rule breakdown

Always automated:

• Rebase if behind (no conflicts)
• Squash merge
• Delete remote branch
• Delete local branch
• Update Linear to Done (if Linearis available)
• Pull latest base branch

Graceful degradation:

• If Linearis not installed, warn but continue
• Merge succeeds regardless of Linear integration

Remember:

• Never bypass branch protection — diagnose and resolve blockers legitimately
• Always squash merge — clean history
• Always delete branches — no orphan branches
• Always run tests — unless explicitly skipped
• Auto-rebase — keep up-to-date with base
• Diagnose, don't give up — identify specific blockers and fix or explain them
• Update Linear — move ticket to Done automatically (if Linearis available)
• Graceful degradation — work without Linearis if needed
• For Linearis CLI syntax, see the linearis skill reference