Merging Across Worktrees

daft merge lets you merge from anywhere into anywhere — no cd, no checkout, no losing your place. The shell stays put; the merge runs in the target worktree.

Quick examples

# Merge feature/api into main without leaving your current worktree
daft merge feature/api --into main

# Octopus merge: three branches into main, in one commit
daft merge feature/a feature/b feature/c --into main

# Merge and clean up the source branch on success
daft merge feature/done --into main -r

daft merge mirrors git merge on the target worktree — all the standard flags (--ff-only, --squash, -s/--strategy, --signoff, --allow-unrelated-histories, etc.) pass through. The full surface is documented in the daft merge reference.

Merge styles

--merge (default), --squash, --rebase, and --rebase-merge pick the shape of the resulting history:

Flag	History shape
--merge	Always create a merge commit (no FF)
--squash	Single squash commit on the target; source is unchanged
--rebase	Linear: rebase source onto target, then fast-forward
--rebase-merge	Rebase source onto target, then create a merge commit

Set a default via git config daft.merge.style <style> (see the Merge Settings reference).

Conflicts

When the merge stops on a conflict, daft reports the worktree path where the merge is in progress and exits non-zero. Resolve there, then continue from anywhere:

# From any worktree:
daft merge --continue  # picks up the in-progress merge automatically

# Or abort:
daft merge --abort

daft list --merging shows worktrees that have an in-progress merge.

Cleanup

-r removes the source branch on success. To also remove the source worktree, or to override the default behavior repo-wide, set git config daft.merge.cleanup remove-branch. The configured default is applied unless you explicitly pass --keep-branch.

Cleanup runs only on a successful merge — a conflicted or aborted merge never removes your source branch silently.

Ephemeral targets

If the target branch has no worktree, --adopt-target spins up a temporary one for the merge:

daft merge feature/hotfix --into release/1.2 --adopt-target

On success the ephemeral worktree is promoted to a permanent worktree at the configured layout. On conflict it stays put so you can resolve in place.

Fork worktrees as sources

Sources are any commit-ish, not just branches — so anonymous fork worktrees merge back by naming their HEAD:

daft merge worktrees/feature-x-fork/HEAD --into feature-x

See Anonymous worktrees for the full fan-out-and-merge-back workflow.

Hook gates

pre-merge and post-merge hooks fire around the operation, with DAFT_MERGE_* env vars covering sources, target, mode, strategy, and result. A pre-merge hook that exits non-zero aborts the merge — full tests, integration checks, or security gates can run before code leaves the branch.

# daft.yml
merge:
  ff: only # source must already contain the target's tip
  source_worktree: clean # and its worktree must exist, with no dirty files

hooks:
  pre-merge:
    jobs:
      - name: test
        run: cargo test --workspace
        root: "{merge_source_path}"
      - name: integration
        run: cargo test --test integration
        root: "{merge_source_path}"
        tags: [deep]

The merge: block is what makes those checks mean something. Under ff: only, a merge whose source does not already contain the target's tip is refused — so the merge is a fast-forward and the tree the jobs tested is exactly the tree that lands. daft re-verifies that at the moment the ref moves: if the source advanced while the gate was running, the merge refuses instead of landing code no check ever saw. Rebase the source and run it again.

root: "{merge_source_path}" runs each job in the source worktree, reusing its warm build caches instead of rebuilding in the target.

Slow jobs can carry a tag and be dropped for a quick iteration:

daft merge feature/api --skip-tag deep

--skip-tag and --skip-hooks skip jobs, never policy — the fast-forward and clean-source requirements hold no matter which jobs you skip. To relax policy you have to say so explicitly, per invocation, with --no-ff-only or --source-worktree any.

When a job fails, the merge aborts and names the invocation to inspect:

daft hooks jobs --last --hook pre-merge  # what ran, what failed, output inline
daft hooks jobs logs test                # the full log

This is the PR-check-parity boundary of the hooks-as-boundaries thesis, and it is worth keeping literal: the jobs in your gate should be the same checks your forge requires on a pull request. See Merge gate parity for keeping the two in step, and Lifecycle hooks → Merge hooks for env vars, fail modes, and config.

Where to next

• CLI reference: daft merge, git worktree-merge
• Configuration: Merge Settings
• Hooks: Merge hooks
• Recipes: Recipes for Worktrees