Force Push Downstream

Force Push Downstream

Force-push a branch and all its downstream branches to their respective remotes.

Skips branches whose local and remote tips already match.

Arguments

• starting-branch (optional) — The branch to start from. Defaults to the

current branch if not specified.

Examples:

• /force-push-downstream — push current branch + all downstream
• /force-push-downstream candle-service-webui — push from that branch down

Current State

• Branch: !git branch --show-current
• Status: !git status --short

Steps

1. Determine starting branch

If an argument was provided, use it as the starting branch. Otherwise use the

current branch.

git branch --show-current

2. Detect downstream chain

Run the detect-chain script (shared with rebase-downstream) to find all

downstream branches:

bash .claude/skills/rebase-downstream/detect-chain.sh <starting-branch>

3. Build push list

The push list is: the starting branch itself, followed by every downstream

branch in tree order (from detect-chain output).

4. Show plan and confirm

Display the branches that will be pushed:

Force push plan:
  candle-service-background-webcontents
    → background-webcontents-timer
      → candle-service-webui
        → candle-service-model-loading
          → brave-history-embeddings
          → local-ai-internals

For each branch, check if it is already up-to-date with origin:

# Get local and remote SHAs
local_sha=$(git rev-parse <branch>)
remote_sha=$(git rev-parse origin/<branch> 2>/dev/null || echo "none")

If local_sha == remote_sha, mark as (up-to-date, will skip). If the remote

branch doesn't exist, mark as (new, will push). Otherwise mark as

(diverged, will force-push).

Ask the user to confirm before pushing.

5. Push each branch

For each branch in the push list:

• Skip if up-to-date: If local SHA matches origin SHA, print skip message

and move on.

• Force push:

   git push --force-with-lease origin <branch>

Use --force-with-lease for safety — it fails if someone else pushed to the

remote since our last fetch, preventing accidental overwrites of others'

work.

• If the remote branch doesn't exist (first push), use:

   git push -u origin <branch>

• Report result: Print success/failure for each branch.

6. Report summary

After all pushes complete, show a summary:

Force push results:
  ✓ candle-service-background-webcontents (pushed)
  - background-webcontents-timer (skipped, up-to-date)
  ✓ candle-service-webui (pushed)
  ✓ candle-service-model-loading (pushed)
  ✓ brave-history-embeddings (pushed, new)
  ✗ local-ai-internals (failed: ...)

Important

• Always use --force-with-lease instead of --force for safety
• Do NOT push without user confirmation
• Skip branches that are already up-to-date (local == remote SHA)
• If any push fails, report it but continue with remaining branches
• Return to the original branch at the end