gh-weld-ship

name

gh-weld-ship

description

GitHub shipping loop — wraps your finished work in a PR, squash-merges it, closes the linked issue, exports the session as a Gist, and posts it as a comment. Enriches the linked issue before closing — updates acceptance criteria checkboxes and posts a close-out narrative comment automatically. Does not implement code; you do the work, gh-weld-ship handles everything GitHub. Use when you're ready to open a PR, squash merge, close an issue, or ready to merge and close a finished feature branch.

gh-weld-ship

NEVER

• NEVER create a PR from main — gh pr create will succeed but target the wrong base, shipping unreleased work directly; create a feature branch first
• NEVER pass a PR body with #-prefixed lines as an inline --body argument — write to .weld/tmp/pr-body.md and pass via --body-file
• NEVER merge before confirming the PR was created successfully — a failed gh pr create still exits 0 in some cases; verify the URL is present in the output before calling gh pr merge
• NEVER close the issue before the merge is confirmed — a failed merge leaves the issue orphaned as closed with no PR; reopening is manual
• NEVER skip the Gist export — the session context on the PR is the audit trail; if /gh-weld-export is unavailable, note its absence explicitly in the Done block rather than silently omitting it
• NEVER prompt the user during issue enrichment — derive checkboxes and close-out narrative from the Step 3 synthesis automatically; any prompt here breaks the single-keypress ship flow
• NEVER chain Bash commands with && or ; — Claude Code's safety check fires on multi-command calls and interrupts mid-flow; run each as a separate Bash tool call
• NEVER use | (pipe) in Bash tool calls — Claude Code stops execution on pipe; redirect to a temp file with > and read back with the Read tool. Note: | in markdown table syntax is unaffected.
• NEVER use $() command substitution or backtick substitution (`cmd`) — Claude Code's permission system prompts on both forms during execution; use fixed paths under .weld/tmp/ instead
• NEVER use --no-verify on git commits — bypasses pre-commit hooks that may enforce format or tests; a broken squash-merge to main blocks all future work
• NEVER use bash heredoc (cat > file << 'EOF') for content with #-prefixed lines — headers trigger Claude Code's security check on every execution; use the Write tool instead
• NEVER use echo > or cat to write file content — use the Write tool; it avoids shell escaping issues and doesn't trigger permission checks
• NEVER use find, grep, or cat as Bash commands — use Glob, Grep, and Read tools instead; they are faster, safer, and don't require shell permissions
• NEVER use interactive flags (-i, -p) in git commands (git rebase -i, git add -p, git stash -p) — Claude Code's non-interactive shell hangs waiting for input that never arrives
• NEVER run git commit without -m — git spawns $EDITOR and waits; the agent cannot interact with it and the session hangs indefinitely

Workflow

Before proceeding, confirm mentally: (a) Is the diff what you expect — no stray files, no debug commits? (b) Do the commit messages accurately describe what was delivered? If either answer is no, stop and fix before continuing.

1 — Validate branch

git branch --show-current

If the result is main or master: output "You're on main — /gh-weld-adopt can help. It'll create an issue for what you're working on, rename the branch, and get everything tracked before you ship." and stop.

2 — Find the linked issue

Try to infer the issue number from the branch name. Common patterns: fix/42-slug, feat/42-slug, issue-42, 42-slug. Extract the number if present.

If no number can be inferred, output: "No issue number found — if this work isn't tracked yet, /gh-weld-adopt can create the issue and set up the branch before you ship." Then ask: "Which issue does this branch implement? Enter a number or (n)one."

If an issue number is known, read it:

gh issue view <N> --json number,title,body,state

If the issue is already closed, warn: "Issue #N is already closed — continue anyway? (y/n)"

3 — Summarize the work

Before synthesizing, ask: do the commits fully represent the delivered work, or are there staged/unstaged changes not yet committed? If loose changes exist, warn: "There are uncommitted changes on this branch — commit them before shipping, or they won't be included in the PR."

Read the commits on this branch since it diverged from main:

git log main..HEAD --oneline

If the output is empty (no commits on this branch), warn: "No commits found on this branch — commit your changes before shipping." and stop.

Read the list of changed files:

git diff main..HEAD --name-only

From the commit messages, changed files, and (if available) the issue body, synthesize:

• A 1–3 sentence summary of what was implemented
• A bullet list of meaningful changes (what changed and why, not just filenames)
• A minimal test plan (how to verify the main behaviour)

A change bullet is meaningful if it names what behaviour changed and why — not just a filename. A test plan item is minimal if it describes the single most likely failure mode a reviewer would check.

4 — Create the PR

Use the Write tool to write the PR body to .weld/tmp/pr-body.md:

## Summary

<1–3 sentence description of what was implemented>

## Changes

- <change 1 — what and why>
- <change 2 — what and why>

## Test plan

- [ ] <how to verify the main behaviour>

## Issue

Closes #<N>

---
*Created with [gh-weld](https://github.com/WrathZA/github-weld)*

If there is no linked issue, omit the ## Issue section.

Create the PR:

gh pr create --title "<issue title or branch description>" --body-file .weld/tmp/pr-body.md --base main

Read the PR URL from the output (e.g. https://github.com/owner/repo/pull/7). If no URL is present in the output, surface the error: "PR creation may have failed — no URL in output. Verify with gh pr list --state open before proceeding." and stop. Extract the PR number from the URL. Write the full PR URL to .weld/tmp/pr-url.txt and just the PR number to .weld/tmp/pr-number.txt with the Write tool.

Clean up:

rm .weld/tmp/pr-body.md

5 — Squash merge

gh pr merge --squash --delete-branch

If the merge fails, diagnose the cause (merge conflict → resolve and retry; branch protection → check required reviews or status checks; stale ref → sync branch and retry) and attempt to fix it. If unresolvable, surface the error and ask "(r)etry / (Q)uit?" — do not proceed to Step 6 until the merge is confirmed.

Once merge is confirmed, switch to main:

git checkout main

If that fails (repo uses master):

git checkout master

If both fail, warn: "Could not switch to main — merge succeeded but you may be on a detached HEAD." and continue to Step 6.

6 — Enrich and close the issue

If there is a linked issue, perform the following automatically — no user prompts:

a. Update acceptance criteria checkboxes

The issue body was fetched in Step 2. The commits and changed files were read in Step 3. For each - [ ] criterion in the issue body, determine whether the delivered changes satisfy it. A criterion is satisfied if a commit message or changed file directly addresses the named behaviour; when ambiguous, leave it unchecked and note the uncertainty in the close-out comment.

If the issue body contains no - [ ] criteria, skip the edit step.

Otherwise, write the updated body with satisfied items marked - [x] to .weld/tmp/issue-updated-body.md using the Write tool:

gh issue edit <N> --body-file .weld/tmp/issue-updated-body.md

If gh issue edit fails, diagnose and fix: malformed body → rewrite the temp file with corrected content; auth error → verify with gh auth status; issue locked → note it and skip. Keep retrying until no further fixes apply, then surface the error and ask "(s)kip / (Q)uit?"

rm .weld/tmp/issue-updated-body.md

b. Post a close-out comment

Using the synthesis from Step 3, write the close-out comment to .weld/tmp/issue-close-comment.md using the Write tool:

<One sentence describing what the PR delivered.>

**What changed:**
- <meaningful change 1 — what and why>
- <meaningful change 2 — what and why>

Shipped in PR #<PR number>.

gh issue comment <N> --body-file .weld/tmp/issue-close-comment.md

If gh issue comment fails, diagnose and fix: malformed body → rewrite the temp file; auth error → verify with gh auth status; rate limit → wait and retry. Keep retrying until no further fixes apply, then surface the error and ask "(s)kip / (Q)uit?"

rm .weld/tmp/issue-close-comment.md

c. Close the issue

gh issue close <N>

7 — Export session to Gist and post to PR

Read .weld/tmp/pr-number.txt with the Read tool to get the PR number. Clean up:

rm .weld/tmp/pr-number.txt

Invoke /gh-weld-export with the PR number as context. This exports the session transcript, uploads it as a secret Gist, and posts a structured summary comment on the merged PR.

If /gh-weld-export succeeds: read .weld/tmp/gist-url.txt with the Read tool to get the Gist URL. Clean up:

rm .weld/tmp/gist-url.txt

If /gh-weld-export fails: warn "Session export failed — ship is otherwise complete." Set <gist-url> unavailable and omit the Session line from the Done block. Proceed to the pr-url read below.

Read .weld/tmp/pr-url.txt with the Read tool to get the PR URL. Clean up:

rm .weld/tmp/pr-url.txt

Output a ## Done block:

## Done

<One sentence: what was shipped and why, inferred from PR title and issue title.>

- PR: <pr-url>
- Issue: https://github.com/<owner>/<repo>/issues/<N> (closed)
- Session: <gist-url>

If no linked issue, omit the Issue line. If export failed, omit the Session line.

All steps complete. No further action required.