SDF v0.3.7: Sharper Edges

This release is about polish. No new paradigms — just a bunch of improvements that make the day-to-day workflow smoother. Smarter sync, better housekeeping, and fewer paper cuts.

sdf ls — see all your stacks at a glance

If you work on multiple stacks in a repo, you've probably forgotten what's in flight. sdf ls fixes that:

*  auth-stack           3 PRs   partial (1/3 merged)
   payments-refactor    2 PRs   active
   old-migration        4 PRs   completed

The * marks the stack your current branch belongs to. Statuses tell you what needs attention: active means work in progress, partial means some PRs have merged (time to run sdf sync), and completed means the whole stack has landed.

sdf ls --json    # structured output for scripts

sdf prune — clean up stale metadata

Over time, .sdf/ accumulates artifacts from deleted branches and completed stacks. sdf prune cleans them up:

sdf prune          # dry-run by default, shows what would change
sdf prune --apply  # actually delete stale files

It removes orphaned nodes (branches that no longer exist locally), deletes stack files that are fully merged or empty, prunes stale split plan files, and cleans up legacy directories. Dry-run by default, so you can always preview before committing.

Smarter sync — skip unnecessary rebases

Previously, sdf sync would rebase every branch in the stack, even when the parent's tip was already an ancestor of the child. That meant rewriting commits for no reason — new SHAs, lost signatures, and wasted time.

v0.3.7 introduces ancestry-aware sync. Before rebasing, SDF checks git merge-base --is-ancestor. If the parent tip is already in the child's history, it skips the rebase and just updates the recorded base tip. The sync plan now shows update-tip actions alongside the usual rebase actions, so you can see exactly what's being skipped and why.

This matters most after a force-push or amend where only some branches actually diverged. Sync used to touch everything; now it only touches what needs it.

sdf status -v — see what's in each branch

The verbose flag adds commit hashes and subject lines to the status output:

  my-stack  (base: main)

 → ●  feat/auth       PR #42  open   2 commits ahead, in sync
       abc1234 add login endpoint
       def5678 add session middleware
   ●  feat/dashboard  PR #43  open   1 commits ahead, in sync
       789abcd wire up auth to dashboard

Useful when you're reviewing a stack and want to quickly see what each branch contains without switching to it.

Better merge error handling

sdf merge now handles GitHub policy errors gracefully. If branch protection rules prevent a merge (required reviews, failing CI), you get a clear message explaining what's blocking you — not a raw API error.

The new --auto flag passes through to GitHub's auto-merge, so you can queue a merge that executes once CI passes:

sdf merge --auto

If the merge itself fails, SDF now rolls back any downstream PR retargeting it already did, so you don't end up with a half-updated stack.

PR templates

sdf pr now detects and includes your repository's PR template. It checks the standard GitHub template locations (.github/pull_request_template.md, root-level PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md, and the .github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE/ directory) and prepends the template content to the PR body, separated from the stack metadata.

Collaborator branch detection

When a teammate pushes a branch that targets one of your stack branches, sdf sync and sdf status now detect it. Instead of silently ignoring branches they didn't create, they surface collaborator-added child branches so you know when someone is building on top of your stack.

Everything else

• Conventional prefix preservation — sdf sync --with-content now preserves feat(scope): prefixes when updating PR titles, instead of occasionally dropping them
• Empty branch guard — sdf pr fails early with a clear message when you try to create a PR from a branch with no commits ahead of its base
• Completion fix — sdf switch tab completion no longer suggests deleted branches
• Split safety — sdf split now blocks when the source branch is based on a non-main ancestor, preventing invalid split operations
• Move safety — sdf move has stronger invariant checks for conflict scenarios
• Content hash — CLI reference docs use a content hash instead of a timestamp, eliminating spurious merge conflicts across PRs

Upgrade

brew upgrade sdf

Or install fresh:

brew install pavelpascari/tap/sdf

Full changelog: v0.3.6...v0.3.7