dev

Development workflow utilities for branching, PR management, and review feedback.

Creating branches

Create a new branch off the latest default branch commit.

Workflow

1. Fetch latest from remote
2. Detect default branch (main or master)
3. Create branch with descriptive name based on task
4. Switch to new branch

Branch naming

Generate a short, kebab-case name from the task:

• add-user-auth not add-user-authentication-feature
• fix-login-bug not fix-the-bug-in-the-login-flow
• refactor-api not refactor-api-endpoints-for-better-performance

Use a prefix if the repo convention requires one (check existing branches).

# Fetch and get default branch
git fetch origin
git remote show origin | sed -n '/HEAD branch/s/.*: //p'

# Create branch from latest default branch
git checkout -b <branch-name> origin/main

# See existing branch naming patterns
git branch -r | head -20

If branches use prefixes like feature/, fix/, or username prefixes like wcm/, follow that pattern.

Review feedback

Address GitHub PR review comments and reply to reviewers.

Workflow

1. Get pending review comments - fetch unresolved comments
2. Address each comment - make code changes to resolve feedback
3. Commit with clear message - reference what feedback was addressed
4. Reply to reviewer - concise reply with commit SHA and explanation

Getting review comments

# All comments on a PR (includes replies)
gh pr view <pr-number> --comments --json comments

# Review comments (code-level feedback)
gh api repos/{owner}/{repo}/pulls/{pr}/comments --jq '.[] | {id, path, line, body, user: .user.login, in_reply_to_id}'

# Pending/unresolved comments (no replies yet)
gh api repos/{owner}/{repo}/pulls/{pr}/comments --jq '[.[] | select(.in_reply_to_id == null)] | .[] | {id, path, body: .body[0:100]}'

Replying to comments

# Reply to a review comment
gh api repos/{owner}/{repo}/pulls/{pr}/comments \
  --method POST \
  -f body="Fixed in abc1234 - renamed to run-test.js" \
  -F in_reply_to=<comment-id>

Good reply format

Replies should be:

• Concise - one sentence is often enough
• Reference commit SHA - so reviewer can verify
• Explain how - brief description of the fix

Examples:

• Fixed in abc1234 - renamed to run-test.js as suggested
• Addressed in def5678 - now uses a single rule in cook.mk
• Good catch, fixed in 789abcd - removed the duplicate import

Complete example

# 1. Get pending comments on PR #269
gh api repos/whilp/world/pulls/269/comments \
  --jq '.[] | select(.in_reply_to_id == null) | {id, path, body}'

# Output:
# {"id":2702089939,"path":"lib/appscript/run-tests.js","body":"run-tests.js should be run-test.js..."}

# 2. Make the fix and commit
git mv lib/appscript/run-tests.js lib/appscript/run-test.js
git commit -m "appscript: rename run-tests.js to run-test.js"
# Commit SHA: abc1234

# 3. Reply to the comment
gh api repos/whilp/world/pulls/269/comments \
  --method POST \
  -f body="Fixed in abc1234 - renamed to run-test.js" \
  -F in_reply_to=2702089939

Batch processing

For multiple comments:

# Get all pending comments as JSON
gh api repos/{owner}/{repo}/pulls/{pr}/comments \
  --jq '[.[] | select(.in_reply_to_id == null)] | group_by(.path) | .[] | {path: .[0].path, comments: [.[] | {id, body}]}'

This groups comments by file for efficient processing.