T-AHL1-sdlc-arm-commit-worktree-from-maincheckout

Status: closed/done · Impact: medium · Complexity: small

Goal

T-ML6A (PR #894) armed the ephemeral commit-worktree that commitToMainViaWorktree creates, so pre-commit hooks can resolve the workspace deps (commander, yaml) that Bun’s isolated linker places only at apps/sdlc/node_modules. The arm reads its verb list from the caller’s raw projectRoot, but ensure_ready_mutate.ts passes dirname(taskFilePath) — for the canonical nested path that is …/docs/planning/tasks, where loadConfig finds no sdlc.yaml and returns defaults (empty verbs). So the arm silently no-ops and every /sdlc:task-work Step 5a (--commit-on main readiness stamp) fails with Cannot find package 'commander'. This makes the readiness gate unusable repo-wide; only Step 5b (start_task.ts, which passes the resolved main-repo root) is arming correctly.

Today

Location	Role today
apps/sdlc/lib/services/git/commit-to-main.ts	commitToMainViaWorktree resolves mainCheckout (git-common-dir’s parent, correct from any subdir) and creates the ephemeral worktree under it, but arms with the raw projectRoot
apps/sdlc/skills/task-ensure-ready/ensure_ready_mutate.ts	Its --commit-on path passes projectRoot: dirname(path) — the tasks subdir for a canonical task path — so the arm verb list resolves empty
apps/sdlc/lib/services/git/arm-worktree.ts	commitWorktreeInitVerbs(projectRoot) reads loadConfig(projectRoot); loadConfig reads sdlc.yaml only at the exact root (no walk-up), so a subdir yields defaults
apps/sdlc/lib/services/git/tests/commit-to-main.test.ts	The arm test passes projectRoot: mainDir (the root), so the subdir case that breaks in production is untested

Proposed

commitToMainViaWorktree arms the ephemeral worktree from the already-resolved mainCheckout rather than the caller’s raw projectRoot. Because the ephemeral worktree is created under mainCheckout/.sdlc/commit-worktrees/, its deps must come from mainCheckout’s config — so arming from mainCheckout is both the correct source and robust to any caller that passes a subdir. ensure_ready_mutate.ts then arms correctly with no caller-side change, and start_task.ts (whose projectRoot already equals its mainCheckout) is unaffected.

Approach

1. In commitToMainViaWorktree, arm from the resolved mainCheckout instead of projectRoot (the value is already computed above the worktree add).
2. Add a regression test: drive commitToMainViaWorktree with projectRoot pointed at a subdirectory of the main checkout and assert the declared arm verbs still run (they would resolve empty under the old code).
3. Run the git-service suite plus tsc --noEmit; confirm the existing root-projectRoot arm test still passes.

Files to touch

Location	Kind	Change
apps/sdlc/lib/services/git/commit-to-main.ts	modify	Arm from mainCheckout, not projectRoot
apps/sdlc/lib/services/git/tests/commit-to-main.test.ts	modify	Add subdir-projectRoot arm regression test

Acceptance criteria

• AC-1: commitToMainViaWorktree invoked with a subdir projectRoot (whose main-checkout root declares commit_worktree_init:) runs the declared arm verbs; a new test asserts this and fails against the pre-fix code.
• AC-2: The existing “arms the worktree after worktree add” test (root projectRoot) still passes unchanged.
• AC-3: bun test apps/sdlc/lib/services/git and bunx tsc --noEmit pass in the worktree.

Out of scope

• Changing loadConfig to walk ancestors — the arm-source fix is sufficient and narrower; a walk-up default is a broader behavior change with its own blast radius.
• The backlog-capture arm call site (apps/sdlc/cli/backlog_cli/create.ts), which builds its worktree under opts.projectRoot and arms with the same opts.projectRoot (self-consistent), and is invoked from the project root.

Dependencies

• none — builds on T-ML6A, already merged.

Discovery context

• Found 2026-07-18 while running /sdlc:task-work on the augmented_books adoption tasks: Step 5a failed with Cannot find package 'commander' even after #894 merged. Traced to commitWorktreeInitVerbs(dirname(taskPath)) resolving [] for the nested tasks-directory projectRoot.

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