Finishing a branch

How Superpowers verifies, reviews, and completes implementation work — merging, creating a PR, keeping, or discarding the branch.

The finishing-a-development-branch skill runs when all implementation tasks are complete. It verifies tests, runs a final review over the full implementation, and presents four structured options for what to do with the work.

When this skill starts, the agent announces: “I’m using the finishing-a-development-branch skill to complete this work.”

Core principle: Verify tests → present options → execute choice → clean up.

Step 1: Verify tests

Before presenting any options, the agent runs the full test suite:

# Use the project-appropriate command
npm test
cargo test
pytest
go test ./...

If tests fail, the agent reports the failures and stops:

Tests failing (N failures). Must fix before completing:

[failures listed here]

Cannot proceed with merge/PR until tests pass.

The agent does not present completion options until tests pass.

Step 2: Determine the base branch

git merge-base HEAD main 2>/dev/null || git merge-base HEAD master 2>/dev/null

If the base branch is ambiguous, the agent asks.

Step 3: Final code review

Before presenting options, a final code reviewer subagent inspects the entire implementation — all commits since the branch diverged from the base. This review looks at the whole picture, not individual tasks.

Step 4: Choose what to do

The agent presents exactly four options:

Implementation complete. What would you like to do?

1. Merge back to <base-branch> locally
2. Push and create a Pull Request
3. Keep the branch as-is (I'll handle it later)
4. Discard this work

Which option?

1. Merge locally

# Switch to base branch
git checkout <base-branch>

# Pull latest
git pull

# Merge feature branch
git merge <feature-branch>

# Verify tests on merged result
<test command>

# If tests pass, delete feature branch
git branch -d <feature-branch>

Tests are verified again on the merged result. The worktree is cleaned up after the merge.

2. Push and create PR

# Push branch
git push -u origin <feature-branch>

# Create PR
gh pr create --title "<title>" --body "$(cat <<'EOF'
## Summary
<2-3 bullets of what changed>

## Test Plan
- [ ] <verification steps>
EOF
)"

The worktree is cleaned up after the PR is created. The branch itself is preserved.

3. Keep as-is

Keeping branch <name>. Worktree preserved at <path>.

The worktree is not cleaned up. Use this when you want to continue work later or inspect the state manually.

4. Discard

Before deleting anything, the agent shows exactly what will be lost and requires typed confirmation:

This will permanently delete:
- Branch <name>
- All commits: <commit-list>
- Worktree at <path>

Type 'discard' to confirm.

Only after receiving the exact word discard does the agent proceed:

git checkout <base-branch>
git branch -D <feature-branch>

The worktree is cleaned up after deletion.

This is permanent. The agent will not proceed without the typed discard confirmation.

Worktree cleanup

Option	Merge	Push	Worktree removed	Branch deleted
1. Merge locally	Yes	—	Yes	Yes
2. Create PR	—	Yes	Yes	—
3. Keep as-is	—	—	—	—
4. Discard	—	—	Yes	Yes (force)

For options 1, 2, and 4, the agent removes the physical worktree directory:

git worktree remove <worktree-path>

For option 3 (keep as-is), the worktree is preserved so you can return to it later.

Common mistakes

Skipping test verification

Merging or creating a PR without verifying tests first risks broken code reaching the base branch. The skill always runs the test suite before presenting options — do not skip this step.

Automatic worktree cleanup

The worktree is removed for options 1 (merge), 2 (PR), and 4 (discard). Only option 3 (keep as-is) preserves the worktree directory, since you intend to return to it later.

No confirmation for discard

Discarding without a typed confirmation can permanently delete hours of work. The exact word discard is required.

Force-pushing without consent

Never force-push unless the user explicitly requests it. Present the four standard options instead.