Think Through Git & Repository Workflows

Production guidance for Git as a content-addressed graph, a distributed state machine, and one layer of a larger repository policy and release system. This skill is not a command cheat sheet and does not assume classical Gitflow is the right workflow.

Core principle: Observe the exact state, establish the expected old state, make the smallest authorized transition, and verify the authoritative result. A branch or tag is a mutable ref; a commit OID identifies an immutable object; hosted approvals, CI, protections, releases, and deployments are separate state.

Domain Law

NO GIT MUTATION WITHOUT:
1. the repository, worktree/index/sequencer state, and unrelated user changes inspected;
2. the exact object/ref transition and publication state identified;
3. local versus remote/hosted authority made explicit;
4. concurrency, retry, recovery, CI, release, and consumer effects handled;
5. the resulting graph, refs, worktree, policy state, and evidence verified.

When to Use