remote-branch-graveyard-sweeplisted

# Remote Branch Graveyard Sweep ## Overview A branch with unmerged commits is **not** automatically dead — its work may have been superseded on `main` via different SHAs (squash-merge, reimplementation). Verify the unique artifact landed before deleting, or you risk both losing real work and leaving a stale graveyard. Codifies **the "superseded, not dead" check**. ## When to use - "clean up the branches" / "make sure the repo is clean" - a remote with many stale feature/worktree branches ## Steps 0. **Prune stale worktree registrations first.** A worktree registered from *another* repo can pollute `git worktree list` and make a branch-iterating loop exit-128 mid-sweep. Run `git worktree prune` before iterating. 1. **Classify** every remote branch: ```bash for b in $(git branch -r | grep -vE 'origin/(main|HEAD)$'); do n=$(git cherry origin/main "$b" | grep -c '^+') [ "$n" -eq 0 ] && echo "$b MERGED" || echo "$b $n-unmerged" done ``` 2. **MERGED branches** (every commit prefixed `-`) → safe to delete. 3. **For each `N-unmerged` branch**, before treating the count as real, run two cheap cross-checks — `git cherry` / ancestry gives a false "unmerged" for squash-merged and reimplemented work: - **PR history:** `gh pr list --state merged --json headRefName,number` — a merged PR whose `headRefName` matches the branch means the work landed (squashed). - **Content diff:** `git diff origin/main <branch> --stat` — **empty output = content is already on