git-flow

git-flow

A Claude Code plugin that brings the Git Flow branching model to the command palette. Five slash commands cover the full lifecycle (/feature, /release, /hotfix, /finish, /flow-status), backed by a skill that knows the conventions, gotchas, and override patterns. Works in any repo that uses Git Flow — Node, Python, Rust, monorepos, plugin repos, anything.

What you get

Five slash commands that handle the routine moves so you stop thinking about which branch to cut from, what to merge to, and what to tag:

Command	What it does
/feature <name>	Cuts feature/<name> from develop, pushes with tracking
/release <version>	Cuts release/<version> from develop, bumps version files, updates CHANGELOG.md
/hotfix	Cuts hotfix/<auto-version> from main, auto-increments the patch from the latest release tag
/finish	Merges the current branch to its target(s), tags releases/hotfixes, bumps develop to the next dev cycle, pushes everything, creates a GitHub release for tags
/flow-status	Shows current branch type, sync state, active branches, what /finish would do, and any drift from Git Flow conventions

One skill (git-flow) loaded by the agent when the conversation touches branching decisions. The skill carries the branching diagram, the merge-target matrix, the semver-pick rules, and a list of real-world gotchas (squash-merge force-deletes, --no-ff discipline, push-hook workarounds, grep -c exit codes under set -e, and more).

One status script (skills/git-flow/scripts/git-flow-status.sh) that the /flow-status command shells out to. Also runnable directly with --json for piping into other tools.

The branching model (ASCII version)

main ──────────────────────────────────────────────► (production, tagged releases)
  │                     ▲           ▲
  │                     │           │
  │              release/v1.3.0  hotfix/v1.2.1
  │                     ▲           │
  │                     │           │
  └──► develop ─────────┴───────────┴──────────────► (integration)
         │         ▲
         │         │
         └──► feature/my-feature

Branch	From	To	Tag?
feature/*	develop	develop	No
release/*	develop	main + develop	Yes
hotfix/*	main	main + develop	Yes

Installation

/plugin marketplace add abhattacherjee/git-flow
/plugin install git-flow

Then run /reload-plugins (or restart Claude Code). The commands appear under the git-flow: namespace and — assuming nothing else in your install owns the same names — will also work unqualified (/flow-status, /feature, etc.).

That's it. There's nothing to clone, copy, or symlink. The plugin lives in Claude Code's plugin cache at ~/.claude/plugins/cache/git-flow-repo/git-flow/<version>/.

Quality gates

The plugin ships a PreToolUse Bash hook (hooks/check-pr-base.py) that auto-activates on install. It blocks two categories of mistake on Git Flow branches:

1. gh pr create without --base, or with the wrong --base.
2. gh pr merge against a PR whose baseRefName does not match the branch-type matrix below.

Branch	Required base
feature/*	develop
hotfix/*	main
release/*	main

The hook fails open for non-Git-Flow branches, single-trunk repos (no develop), detached HEAD, and any gh/git failure — these conditions never block legitimate work. Diagnostic breadcrumbs may be written to stderr in security-relevant fail-open cases (gh failure, shell-expansion --base value) so wrong-base merges that slip through can be debugged post-hoc.

The same matrix is enforced in-script by verify_pr_base() in scripts/git-flow-finish.sh, so /finish catches the failure even if the hook is somehow disabled.

Updating

/plugin marketplace update git-flow-repo

This pulls the latest release tag from GitHub. Pin to a specific version with /plugin install git-flow@<version> if you need stability over freshness.

Uninstalling

/plugin uninstall git-flow
/plugin marketplace remove git-flow-repo   # if you don't want to receive updates anymore

Walkthroughs

Feature → develop

/feature user-authentication        # creates feature/user-authentication, pushes
… write code, commit, push …
/finish                             # merges to develop, deletes the branch

Planned release

/release 1.3.0                      # creates release/1.3.0, bumps versions, updates CHANGELOG
… edit CHANGELOG entries on the release branch …
/finish                             # merges to main + develop, tags v1.3.0, bumps develop to 1.3.1, creates GitHub release

Emergency hotfix