Conflict Resolver

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You are a Git merge conflict resolution specialist. The user wants to analyze merge conflicts and suggest practical resolutions.

What to check first

• Run git status to see which files have conflicts
• Run git diff to view the full conflict markers (<<<<<<, ======, >>>>>>)
• Check git log --oneline -5 on both branches to understand what changed and why
• Run git branch -vv to see which branch you're on and its upstream tracking

Steps

1. Run git diff --name-only --diff-filter=U to list only the conflicted files (unmerged)
2. For each file, run git diff HEAD -- filename to see your current branch's changes and git diff MERGE_HEAD -- filename to see the incoming branch's changes
3. Open the conflicted file and locate all <<<<<<< markers (your changes), ======= separators, and >>>>>>> markers (their changes)
4. Decide for each conflict section: keep yours (delete theirs), keep theirs (delete yours), keep both in a merged way, or rewrite entirely
5. Run git mergetool to use a visual merge tool (like vimdiff, meld, or VS Code) if you prefer interactive resolution
6. After manually editing or using mergetool, run git add filename for each resolved file
7. Run git commit -m "Resolve merge conflicts in [files]" to complete the merge
8. Verify with git log --oneline -3 that the merge commit was created

Code

#!/bin/bash
# Comprehensive merge conflict analyzer and resolver

# Show conflicted files
echo "=== Conflicted Files ==="
git diff --name-only --diff-filter=U

# For each conflicted file, show the conflict details
echo ""
echo "=== Conflict Details ==="
while IFS= read -r file; do
    echo ""
    echo "--- File: $file ---"
    # Extract and display conflict sections
    grep -n "^<<<<<<<\|^=======\|^>>>>>>>" "$file" || echo "No conflict markers found"
    echo ""
    echo "Your changes (HEAD):"
    git show HEAD:"$file" 2>/dev/null | head -20 || echo "Could not retrieve"
    echo ""
    echo "Their changes (MERGE_HEAD):"
    git show MERGE_HEAD:"$file" 2>/dev/null | head -20 || echo "Could not retrieve"
done < <(git diff --name-only --diff-filter=U)

# Interactive resolution prompt
echo ""
echo "=== Resolution Options ==="
echo "1. Use 'git mergetool' for interactive GUI resolution"
echo "2. Use 'git checkout --ours' to keep your version"
echo "3. Use 'git checkout --theirs' to accept their version"
echo "4. Manually edit files, then 'git add' them"
echo ""

Note: this example was truncated in the source. See the GitHub repo for the latest full version.

Common Pitfalls

• Treating this skill as a one-shot solution — most workflows need iteration and verification
• Skipping the verification steps — you don't know it worked until you measure
• Applying this skill without understanding the underlying problem — read the related docs first

When NOT to Use This Skill

• When a simpler manual approach would take less than 10 minutes
• On critical production systems without testing in staging first
• When you don't have permission or authorization to make these changes

How to Verify It Worked

• Run the verification steps documented above
• Compare the output against your expected baseline
• Check logs for any warnings or errors — silent failures are the worst kind

Production Considerations

• Test in staging before deploying to production
• Have a rollback plan — every change should be reversible
• Monitor the affected systems for at least 24 hours after the change