| name | spectre-rebase |
| description | 👻 | Safe guided git rebase — backup ref, auto-resolve conflicts, and either run affected post-rebase checks or hand advisory verification ownership to an orchestrating parent. Use to rebase the current branch onto a target (e.g. origin/main), especially when conflicts or post-rebase verification are expected. Do NOT use for merges, cherry-picks, interactive history edits, or non-git work. |
| user-invocable | true |
rebase
Rebase the current branch onto a target, resolving conflicts and verifying the result, with a recoverable safety net.
Inputs
- Target branch from
$ARGUMENTS (e.g. origin/main) and optional --orchestrated when a parent workflow owns the next step. If absent, ask which branch to rebase onto.
- Optional
--verification-owner parent, valid only with --orchestrated. It transfers post-rebase verification to the parent; plain --orchestrated does not transfer ownership.
- Current branch + working-tree state (read just-in-time via
git status, never assume).
Working Set
- The current git branch and its commits ahead of target.
- Project test/lint commands (detect from repo:
npm test, pytest, cargo test, go test).
Outputs + DONE
A rebased branch and a Rebase Summary returned in-thread (not written to disk):
- Branch
{current} → {target}; commit count; conflict count; verification result PASS|QUALIFIED|PARENT_OWNED|NEEDS_AUTHORITY.
- Per-conflict decision table:
| File | Decision | Rationale |.
- Smoketest guide grounded in files touched:
{area}: [ ] {behavior to verify}.
- Safety line: backup ref name + restore command.
DONE when self-owned: rebase completes with no remaining conflict markers, commit count validates against expectation, affected verification has no branch-caused failure, unrelated findings are routed, and the summary (including the backup ref + restore command) is delivered.
REBASE_READY when parent-owned: rebase completes with no remaining conflict markers, commit count validates against expectation, and the summary records verification: PARENT_OWNED. Parent verification is advisory workflow evidence unless its own contract says otherwise; it is not a precondition for PR creation.
Method / guardrails
- Snapshot first. If the tree is dirty, auto-commit (
git commit -am "chore: snapshot before rebase") — no prompt. Then git fetch origin.
- YOU MUST create a backup ref before rebasing and surface its restore command in the summary:
git branch backup/rebase-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S) → restore via git reset --hard {backup}. This is the only rollback; never start the rebase without it.
- Run
git rebase {target}. For each conflict: resolve favoring the target branch's conventions (no prompts), record {file}: {decision} — {rationale}, git add, git rebase --continue. Repeat until clean.
- Verify after resolution — always confirm commit count and no unexpected changes.
- Self-owned: run affected lint/typecheck/build plus related tests selected from the rebased diff. Repair branch-caused failures and reverify; record/route unrelated failures; use only a failing focused check at the target SHA for indeterminate attribution. Never run a repository-wide baseline or full suite.
--orchestrated --verification-owner parent: do not run lint or tests; return REBASE_READY with verification: PARENT_OWNED.
- Track every resolution decision as you go (the summary table is a postcondition, not an afterthought).
Handoff
Return the Rebase Summary inline as a compressed (1–2K) block. With --orchestrated, return to the caller without user-facing Next Steps; parent-owned verification returns REBASE_READY, never DONE. Standalone success → Next (recommended): /spectre:create_pr — the rebased branch is ready for review with affected verification recorded. An incomplete rebase recommends only the exact recovery action.
Escalate-If
- Conflicts can't be resolved by favoring the target (genuine semantic divergence) → stop, report, leave the rebase in progress for the user.
- A test/lint/build check fails after rebase → keep repairing or route it by attribution; never return a blocker solely because verification is red.
--verification-owner parent is supplied without --orchestrated, or the caller does not explicitly accept post-rebase verification ownership → stop before rebase.- Working tree or target branch state is ambiguous → ask before acting.
