Settle

Settle the current session in four steps. Each step finishes before the next starts.

1. Read live state

The session's memory of its repositories and pull requests may be hours old. For every repository the session touched, run git fetch, then read git status, git worktree list --porcelain, and git branch -vv. For every pull request the session opened or pushed to, read gh pr view with state, headRefOid, labels, comments, and statusCheckRollup. Base every later check on this output.

2. Clear the loose ends

A loose end is anything that keeps the session from being settled. The session is settled when every check below passes, or each failure has been resolved by its tier (see Deciding) or left by the user's choice.

For each repository the session touched:

• git status is clean and no branch is ahead of its upstream.
• No stale branch or worktree remains (see below).
• The primary checkout is on the default branch and up to date. When it sits on a stale branch, switch it to the default branch and pull.

For each pull request the session opened or pushed to:

• It is merged, or the user chose to leave it open.
• It has a recommend-* label and a review comment. When either is missing on a merged pull request, stop any review still running for it and list it as merged without review. Start no new review.

For the session itself:

• No offer, question, or follow-up the session raised is still unanswered. Search the whole session, not only the last message: "Want me to…", "Should I…", failures found on the default branch, and anything reported as skipped or not verified.
• No scratch directory, temporary file, or background process it started remains. That includes mktemp -d directories, local servers, and tailscale serve entries.

Stale branches and worktrees

A branch other than the default branch is stale when its local head, and its fetched remote head if the remote branch still exists, each either is contained in the default branch or equals the headRefOid of its merged pull request. Stale status does not depend on which session created the branch. Find a branch's worktree by the branch line of git worktree list --porcelain, since a worktree's directory name can differ from its branch.

Delete without asking only a stale branch that no linked worktree has checked out and no other local branch tracks as upstream. Its commits exist on the default branch or in its merged pull request, so nothing is lost. Delete stacked branches child first.

Every other branch the session left behind is a loose end, and so is every linked worktree, however clean it looks: Git settings and index flags can hide a worktree's files from git status. When asking about one, name what deleting it would lose:

• its unique commits;
• every path git status --porcelain --ignored --untracked-files=all lists in its worktree, ignored files such as .env included;
• every path whose git ls-files -v tag is not H, such as h for assume-unchanged or S for skip-worktree;
• the herdr pane whose cwd is inside the worktree (herdr pane list).

To delete a branch, whether asked or not: if the user chose to delete its worktree, first run git worktree remove --force <path>. Then run git branch -D, and delete the remote branch when one still exists, leased to the remote head you checked: git push --force-with-lease=<branch>:<sha> origin :<branch>. Run git worktree prune for worktrees whose directory is gone.

Deciding

Sort each remaining loose end into the first tier that fits, so the user answers only what needs their judgment:

1. Clean up without asking what the session started and nothing else uses: its scratch directories, temporary files, background processes, local servers, and tailscale serve entries.
2. File an issue without asking for follow-up work that could hide a defect: a failure found on the default branch, or a check reported as skipped or not verified on shipped code. This holds even when the user moved past an offer to fix or file it. File it in the repository's issue tracker per its AGENTS.md, with redacted credentials and personal data. Drop a skipped check whose worst case is cosmetic and already visible to the user.
3. Drop without asking any other offer or question the user moved past. Their next request answered it.
4. Ask about everything else: every branch other than a stale one, every linked worktree, every open pull request, and uncommitted changes. A wrong call on these loses work or changes what others see.

Ask in one batch through native structured input (AskUserQuestion in Claude Code, request_user_input in Codex). Offer the choices that fit each one, such as finishing it now, filing an issue, keeping or deleting an artifact, or leaving it. A worktree another pane is in stays until that pane's session settles itself, so offer only waiting or leaving it. Do what the user picks, then run the checks again. This step is done when the session is settled.

3. File the lessons

A lesson is something from the session that would change what a future session does or knows: a decision and its reason, a gotcha, a working recipe, a fact that took real digging to find. Work that a repository, its history, an issue, or a pull request already records is not a lesson.

Keep a lesson only when rediscovering it would cost a future session real time: it took digging, a wrong turn, or a correction from the user. Drop the rest without asking. When no lesson is kept, write nothing and say so in one line.

Otherwise, read ~/ghq/github.com/wkentaro/secondbrain/AGENTS.md and search secondbrain for the page each lesson belongs on. Cross-project tool lessons usually belong on a page under references/tools/. Write every kept lesson without asking: update the existing page in place, or create one per the target domain's AGENTS.md. Redact credentials and personal data the lesson does not need. Commit and push to main, confirm the push succeeded, and list each lesson with its page in one line.

Ask before acting on a lesson that would create or change a skill, an AGENTS.md, or a CLAUDE.md, since those change what every later session does. Propose each with its target in one multi-select question, and write what the user approves.

4. Close the pane

Do this last, since it ends the session. When HERDR_PANE_ID is set, read the pane's current tab from herdr pane get "$HERDR_PANE_ID", since HERDR_TAB_ID keeps the tab the pane started in after it moves. Then read herdr tab get for that tab. Run herdr tab close on it when its pane_count is 1, and herdr pane close "$HERDR_PANE_ID" otherwise. When HERDR_PANE_ID is not set, say that no herdr pane was found and stop.