Live incident 2026-08-17: the source checkout was parked on a stale feature
branch (claude-code-inspired/local-terminal-memory-limit, days behind main),
left there by earlier tooling. 'hermes update' autostashed, refreshed lazy
backends, synced skills, and printed '✓ Code updated!' / '✓ Update complete!'
while the checkout stayed on the stale branch with none of main's new code.
Two sessions burned time on 'the fix is missing' confusion.
- Parked-branch guard: auto-switch back to the update target ONLY when the
parked branch is clean and fully merged (git cherry origin/<target> shows
nothing unmerged); the checkout then STAYS on the target instead of being
re-parked. Otherwise: loud CODE UPDATE SKIPPED block naming the branch,
behind-count, and resolution commands; exit 1; branch untouched.
- The up-to-date (commit_count == 0) path no longer switches back to a
fully-merged parked branch either.
- Post-pull gate additionally refuses to print '✓ Code updated!' when HEAD
ends up attached to a non-target branch.
- Summary lines now carry the actual branch + HEAD short-sha:
'✓ Update complete! [main @ 30fcf9580]' — drift visible at a glance.
- New config toggle updates.auto_switch_parked_branch (default true).
- Real-git-fixture regression tests (init/clone/branch, no subprocess
mocks): clean+merged auto-switch, dirty skip, unmerged skip, cherry-picked
equivalence, config opt-out, unverifiable ref, on-main fast path,
up-to-date no-repark, summary branch/sha assertions.
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