Dotfiles Multi-Machine Sync (work + personal Mac)

The dotfiles repo is edited from two Macs. Branches merged + deleted on one machine leave a stale local branch on the other. Always sync before working.

Before starting work — pull first

git checkout main && git pull --ff-only

This is the #1 prevention. Skipping it is how you end up committing onto a local branch that was already merged into origin/main from the other Mac.

Symptoms of a stale local branch

Running git fetch --prune then:

• git status -sb shows origin/<branch> [gone] → the remote branch was deleted (merged via PR with auto-delete).
• git log origin/main..<branch> --oneline is empty → all that branch's commits are already in origin/main. The branch is dead.
• git rev-list --left-right --count main...origin/main shows 0 N → local main is N commits behind; the other Mac advanced it.

Recover uncommitted work onto updated main

When the working tree has uncommitted changes on a dead branch:

# 1. stash ONLY your files (named, includes untracked with -u)
git stash push -u -m "<desc>" -- <file1> <file2> <dir>/

# 2. move to main and update
git checkout main && git pull --ff-only

# 3. reapply
git stash pop

Expect a merge conflict if the other Mac touched the same files. Resolve by keeping BOTH sides when the changes are additive (e.g. one Mac added an Obsidian block, the other a Tailscale block — keep both, drop the markers).

Verify after recovery

grep -nc '^<<<<<<<\|^=======\|^>>>>>>>\|^||||||| ' <file>   # 0 = clean
git rev-list --left-right --count main...origin/main         # 0  0 = aligned

For Ansible changes also run: ansible-playbook playbooks/site.yml --syntax-check and yamllint (see ansible-dotfiles-setup skill).