CodeForPhilly / CodeForPhilly/codeforphilly-ng

reconcile: harden replayLocalOntoRemote against merge commits + empty commits

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TypeScript
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Description

## Background

PR #86's [`replayLocalOntoRemote`](https://github.com/CodeForPhilly/codeforphilly-ng/blob/main/apps/api/src/store/reconcile.ts) (in `apps/api/src/store/reconcile.ts`) replaces `git rebase` with a per-commit `merge-tree --write-tree` + `commit-tree` loop. The plan's Risks section flags two edge cases that the implementation accepts silently rather than guarding against:

### 1. Merge commits get silently flattened

```ts
'commit-tree', mergedTreeHash, '-p', newTip, '-m', message
```

Single `-p` parent. If a multi-parent commit ever appears in `localCommits`, the replay collapses it into a single-parent commit. `git rebase` by default refuses to replay merges (errors out); `--rebase-merges` preserves them.

**Risk:** the data repo today is all programmatic single-parent gitsheets transacts, so this never fires. But if a human or a future automation ever lands a merge commit on the data repo, reconcile would silently drop one of the parents and rewrite history in a misleading way.

### 2. Empty commits are preserved instead of dropped

`git commit-tree ` happily writes a commit even when the resulting tree equals the parent's tree (no diff). Modern `git rebase` drops empty commits by default (`--no-empty`). The replay loop currently writes them through.

**Risk:** an empty commit (programmatically possible if a gitsheets transact does nothing but still commits) gets preserved across reconcile, making history noisier than `git rebase` would produce.

## Proposed hardening

In `replayLocalOntoRemote`:

1. **Reject merge commits early.** Before the loop, check each commit's parent count via `git rev-list --parents` or `git cat-file -p | head -1`. If any commit has `>1` parent, throw `RebaseReplayConflictError` (routes to the escape-hatch) with a clear message. Operator can then investigate the unexpected merge commit on `conflicts/`.
2. **Skip empty commits.** Before calling `commit-tree`, compare `mergedTreeHash` to the new tip's tree (`git show --format=%T -s`). If equal, skip the commit and continue with `newTip` unchanged.

Both checks are cheap. The merge-commit guard is the more important one (data loss avoidance); the empty-commit skip is purely a history-cleanliness improvement.

## Tests to add

In `apps/api/tests/data-repo-reconcile.test.ts`:

- New case: diverged-with-merge-commit-on-local → expect `outcome: 'conflict-escaped'` with the merge commit's hash mentioned in the conflict log.
- New case: diverged-with-empty-commit-on-local → expect `outcome: 'rebased'`, empty commit dropped from the rewritten history.

## Why post-cutover

Neither edge case is reachable from current code paths (no merge commits, no empty-commit-producing transacts). Filing as hardening rather than a bug fix.

_Filed as follow-up from PR #86._

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

Research direction

Start in apps/api/src/store/reconcile.ts at replayLocalOntoRemote, then read the existing reconciliation cases in apps/api/tests/data-repo-reconcile.test.ts. Add coverage for local merge commits and empty commits using the proposed outcomes, and run that test file. Done means merge commits escape with the hash in the conflict log and empty commits are absent from rewritten history.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
git, typescript
Domain
api, backend, testing
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Clearly specified
Newbie friendliness
68/100

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