Erk Graphite Patterns

This skill supplements the official graphite skill with erk-specific patterns. Load graphite first for base command reference and workflows.

CRITICAL: Always Use `--no-interactive`

NEVER invoke any gt command without --no-interactive. This is a global flag inherited by every gt command — not a per-command option.

Without --no-interactive, gt may open prompts, pagers, or editors that hang indefinitely in agent/CI contexts. The --force flag does NOT prevent prompts — you must use --no-interactive separately.

# WRONG - may hang waiting for user input
gt sync
gt submit --force
gt track --parent main

# CORRECT - always pass --no-interactive
gt sync --no-interactive
gt submit --no-interactive
gt track --parent main --no-interactive
gt restack --no-interactive
gt create my-branch -m "message" --no-interactive

What --interactive controls (all disabled by --no-interactive):

Prompts (confirmation dialogs in sync, delete, submit, etc.)
Pagers (output paging in log)
Editors (commit message editing in create/modify, PR metadata in submit)
Interactive selectors (branch selection in checkout, move, track)

Note: gt modify --interactive-rebase is a separate, unrelated flag that starts a git interactive rebase. It is NOT the same as the global --interactive.

Programmatic Parent Resolution

Use gt parent or gt branch info — never parse gt log short output.

# Get parent branch name
parent=$(gt parent --no-interactive)

# Or from gt branch info (more context: parent, children, commit, PR)
parent=$(gt branch info --no-interactive | grep "Parent:" | awk '{print $2}')

# Use for diff operations
git diff "$parent...HEAD"

Anti-patterns:

❌ Parsing gt log short tree visualization (counterintuitive format, confuses agents)
❌ Using git merge-base when Graphite is available
❌ Guessing parent branches from branch names

Metadata Storage

All gt metadata lives in the shared .git directory (accessible across worktrees):

File	Purpose
`.git/.graphite_repo_config`	Trunk branch config
`.git/.graphite_cache_persist`	Branch parent-child graph (the core DAG)
`.git/.graphite_pr_info`	Cached GitHub PR state, review decisions, URLs

Branch Graph (`.graphite_cache_persist`)

Array of [branchName, metadata] tuples:

{
  "branches": [
    ["main", { "validationResult": "TRUNK", "children": ["feat-1"] }],
    [
      "feat-1",
      {
        "parentBranchName": "main",
        "children": ["feat-2"],
        "branchRevision": "abc123...",
        "validationResult": "VALID"
      }
    ]
  ]
}

Key fields: parentBranchName, children, branchRevision, validationResult (VALID, TRUNK, BAD_PARENT_NAME).

Worktree Sharing

All worktrees see the same gt metadata because it's in the common .git directory:

# Same result from any worktree
git rev-parse --git-common-dir  # → /path/to/repo/.git/

This is how erk reads stack information from any worktree without needing gt installed in each one.

Erk Integration

Erk reads gt metadata directly for stack visualization and PR status:

erk list --stacks: Reads .graphite_cache_persist to show stack relationships
erk sync: Delegates to gt sync subprocess
PR info: Reads .graphite_pr_info for PR state without GitHub API calls

Graceful degradation: If gt is not installed (use_graphite = false in ~/.erk/config.toml), erk works without stack info. Cache files missing → functions return None.

Source files: src/erk/cli/graphite.py, src/erk/core/graphite_ops.py

Debugging

Quick Diagnostics

gt ls --no-interactive                    # Branch in stack?
gt branch info <branch> --no-interactive  # Parent, children, PR
cat .git/.graphite_cache_persist | jq '.branches[] | select(.[0]=="<branch>")'

Recovery from Corrupted State

# Nuclear option: re-initialize (loses stack relationships)
rm .git/.graphite_cache_persist
gt repo init --no-interactive

# Re-track branches manually
gt track --branch feature-1 --parent main --no-interactive
gt track --branch feature-2 --parent feature-1 --no-interactive

erk-gt