Contributor Onboarding

Requested by @JayBeest in issue #4227: a first-run path for a contributor who has cloned the repo and wants to know am I current, does it build, does it pass, and what changed while I was away, without a wall of prose and without anything touching their working tree behind their back.

Invocation

Explicit-only. Loading this skill is not authority to fetch, pull, rebase, push, or write files. Every network or mutating step below is a separate action the contributor must ask for after reading the plan.

Non-goals

• Do not run git fetch, git pull, git rebase, or git checkout on your own initiative. Report state; propose the command; wait.
• Do not stash, discard, reset, or commit a dirty tree. Ever.
• Do not call a model provider. Every step here is a local command with a deterministic result. The digest is built from files and git output, not generated prose.
• Do not claim a gate passed that you did not run, and do not summarize a build you did not observe.
• Do not privilege any provider. Codewhale is provider-neutral; a dogfood run uses whatever route the contributor already configured, or none.

Workflow

1. Inspect (read-only, always safe)

Run these and report the results verbatim. Nothing here writes:

git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD
git status --porcelain
git rev-list --left-right --count origin/main...HEAD

Report three facts plainly:

• Branch the contributor is on.
• Tree state: clean, or the count and paths of dirty entries.
• Sync state: N behind, M ahead of origin/main, or unavailable when origin/main is missing or has never been fetched. Unavailable is a real answer, say it rather than guessing zero.

2. Sync, propose, never perform

If behind, print the exact commands and stop:

git fetch origin
git rebase origin/main     # or: git merge origin/main