git-conflict-merge-forward — merge-forward conflict policy

Census id: F16 · Family: F — rules corpus + generated-rule tooling + shipped audit scripts · Provenance: framework pin b069c59328aa8e08671d3a19fd25efa618dfc1c5 (staging FETCH_HEAD, read 2026-09-11; re-anchored from census pin a1337cb301). Every file:line below is at that pin. Raw reference drafted by stage E4 — factual, unpolished by design.

What it bans

Rebasing a published PR branch from an agent session, and hand-merging generated conflicts. .claude/rules/git-conflict-merge-forward.md:1 «# Git conflict merge-forward — discipline rule»; the rule: :14 «To fix a CONFLICTING PR, merge the base branch INTO the PR branch and plain-push (the push is a fast-forward of the remote PR tip, so no force is needed). Never git rebase a published PR branch in an agent session: the follow-up force-push is classifier-blocked for agents in every form». Why rebase is a dead end: :48-51 («git push --force / -f — blocked by git-safety.sh»; «git push --force-with-lease — silently denied by the harness permission classifier (verified 2026-07-21…)»; «Even if force worked: this repo squash-merges PRs, so the rebased «clean history» is collapsed into one commit anyway.»). Class header: :5 «> Class: B — enforcement mechanism is the operator-global PreToolUse guard (~/.claude/hooks/git-safety.sh rebase/force-push arm …) + the always-on [CLAUDE.md Harness gates] pointer … Class A (CI principle test) is structurally unreachable: the violation is an agent-session command choice».

Never (fires)

The anti-patterns: .claude/rules/git-conflict-merge-forward.md:63 «- #rebase-reflex-on-conflicting-pr — reaching for git rebase because it is the muscle-memory fix for «branch behind base». For a published PR branch in an agent session it is a guaranteed dead end (§3).»; :64 «- #force-with-lease-as-safe-force — treating --force-with-lease as the «allowed» force.»; :65 «- #hand-merge-generated-conflicts — resolving fingerprint/twin conflict hunks by hand. The files are generated; hand-merged content is authoritative-looking garbage.»; :66 «- #merge-forward-buries-the-audited-head — pushing the merge-forward commit as the head of a PR that carries a standing FIDELITY: GO … spending a cold seat on a merge that moved no deliverable.»

Always (clean)

The 10-step recipe (:18-36), anchors quoted: :22 «3. git merge origin/staging --no-edit» and :35 «10. git push origin HEAD: # plain push, fast-forward, NO force» with the interlock at :38 «Step 9 is the safety interlock: it proves the push is a fast-forward (remote tip is an ancestor of what you push), i.e. no history was rewritten and no force flag can be needed.» Conflict triage: :57 «Generated conflicts are resolved by regeneration (§2 steps 5-6), never by hand-merging hunks.» and :59 «Anything else in the --diff-filter=U list is a semantic conflict: … STOP, park the merge … surface to the operator».

Enforcement channels

• Rule-index row: .claude/rules/00-rule-index.md:24 «| git-conflict-merge-forward.md | B | a CONFLICTING PR, or any rebase/force-push urge. | claude-md |»
• claude-md channel: .claude/rules/git-conflict-merge-forward.md:3 «» — the always-on CLAUDE.md Harness gates pointer (:5).
• PreToolUse guard (operator-global): ~/.claude/hooks/git-safety.sh rebase/force-push arm (:5, :48) — outside the repo by design; the CI ceiling rationale is at :5.
• PR-time gate for the §8 hazard: the stale-base revert hazard «IS mechanically visible at PR time and therefore carries its own CI gate (stale-revert-in-pr-diff)» (:5).
• Not backend-rendered — no FF diagnostic applies (FF7001/FF7002, packages/core/diagnostics/registry.ts:321/:329); honest status: operator-global hook + CLAUDE.md pointer + one PR-time CI gate.