Shipping to a CoCo-managed Repo

Overview

Formalizes the branch → commit → guard-aware push → PR → CI-wait → report flow used for shipping work to coco-research/coco (or any repo carrying the same corporate git-guard pre-push hook), so it doesn't have to be re-derived by hand each time.

Core principle: Verify state → commit → detect whether the guard actually applies → confirm → push → open PR → wait for real CI → report. Never merge. Never push to main directly, regardless of how it's asked.

Announce at start: "I'm using the coco-ship skill to ship this branch."

This is the direct formalization of Option 2 ("Push and Create PR") in finishing-a-development-branch, specialized for repos that carry the corporate git-guard. It assumes implementation is already done and reviewed, it doesn't replace planning skills like brainstorming, writing-plans, or GSD's phase workflow, and it doesn't run tests itself (that's finishing-a-development-branch's Step 1, or the project's own CI).

The Process

Step 1: Preflight

git status -sb
git branch --show-current

If the current branch is main or master: stop. Do not commit or push here. Offer to create a feature branch first:

git checkout -b <feature-branch-name>

If there's nothing to commit and the branch isn't already ahead of its upstream: stop and say so, there's nothing to ship.

Step 2: Commit

Use the standard git-commit protocol already in effect for this harness, this isn't a new invention, just invoked from inside the skill:

1. In parallel: git status, git diff (staged + unstaged), git log (recent messages, for style).
2. Draft a commit message from the actual diff, why, not just what, matching the repo's existing style.
3. Stage named files explicitly. Never git add -A or git add ..
4. Commit with a Co-Authored-By trailer, via a heredoc so formatting survives.
5. git status again to confirm a clean tree.