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Add CI check to detect main → new-resolver-config merge conflicts #1295
Description
Context
The new-resolver-config branch is a long-lived feature branch where multiple contributors will land PRs. As main progresses (new features, refactors, dependency updates), the feature branch can silently diverge, leading to painful merge conflicts discovered late when we try to merge the completed feature back to main.
Parent epic: #1254
Problem
There is no automated way to detect when main and new-resolver-config have diverged to the point where merging would produce conflicts. Without early detection, conflicts accumulate and become harder to resolve.
Acceptance criteria
- A GitHub Action runs automatically (on push to
main, on a daily schedule, or both) and attempts a trial merge ofmainintonew-resolver-config - If the merge has conflicts, the Action clearly reports which files conflict
- If the merge is clean, no action is taken (or a previously opened alert is closed)
- The check does NOT actually push any merge commits — it is a dry-run detection only
- The team is notified when conflicts are detected (e.g., via an issue, PR comment, or workflow failure visible in the Actions tab)
Notes
- Use
git merge --no-commit --no-ffin a temporary checkout for the dry-run - Consider running on both
schedule(daily) andpushtomaintriggers - Merge direction should be
main→new-resolver-config(not rebase, since the branch is shared) - This Action can be removed once
new-resolver-configis merged back tomain
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LalatenduMohanty commentedon Aug 11, 2026
We implemented a workflow that goes a step further than dry-run detection — it automatically merges
maininto the feature branch on every push tomain.Why merge instead of dry-run?
A dry-run detects conflicts but still requires someone to manually sync the branch. By actually merging, we keep the branch continuously up to date and only require human intervention when there are real conflicts. This prevents the "conflict debt" problem the issue describes — conflicts never accumulate because
mainis merged in as soon as it changes.Conflict handling works the same way: if the merge fails, the workflow opens an issue with the
sync-conflictlabel and instructions to resolve manually. It deduplicates so it won't spam if an open issue already exists.Extracting feature commits: The merge commits won't make it harder to review or extract the feature work.
git log --no-merges main..new-resolver-configcleanly filters out sync merges and shows only feature commits. When merging back tomain, GitHub's squash-merge option can collapse everything into a single clean commit if desired.The workflow also supports
workflow_dispatchwith a configurable branch name, so it can be reused for future long-lived branches.ci: add workflow to auto-sync feature branch with main
ci: add workflow to auto-sync feature branch with main
LalatenduMohanty commentedon Aug 11, 2026
PR #1302 has been updated with two additional improvements over the original implementation:
sync-conflictissue for that branch is automatically closed. This prevents stale issues from accumulating.Note: the implementation goes beyond dry-run detection (acceptance criteria #4) and actually merges
maininto the feature branch. The rationale is explained in the PR description — auto-merging prevents conflict debt from accumulating in the first place, only requiring human intervention for real conflicts.