Branch Management

TUICommander has a built-in Branches tab inside the Git Panel. It lets you view, create, delete, rename, merge, rebase, push, pull, and compare branches — all without leaving the app.

Opening the Branch Panel

Three ways to open it:

• Cmd+G — Opens the Git Panel directly on the Branches tab
• Click the “GIT” vertical label in the sidebar — Opens the Git Panel on the Branches tab
• Cmd+Shift+D, then click the “Branches” tab header — Opens the Git Panel on the last active tab; click Branches to switch

Branch List Overview

The panel shows two collapsible sections:

• Local — all branches in your local repo
• Remote — tracking branches from all remotes

Each branch row displays:

• Branch name
• Ahead/behind counts relative to its upstream (e.g. ↑2 ↓1)
• Relative date of the last commit (e.g. “3h ago”, “2d ago”)
• Merged badge — shown on branches already merged into the default branch
• Stale dimming — branches with no commit in the last 30 days appear dimmed

A Recent Branches section at the top shows recently checked-out branches from the git reflog, for quick re-access.

Prefix Folding

When you have many branches following a naming convention (feature/, bugfix/, chore/), prefix folding groups them automatically:

• Branches sharing a common /-delimited prefix collapse into a folder row (e.g. feature/ (5))
• Click the folder row (or press → / ←) to expand or collapse it
• The toggle button in the panel header enables or disables prefix folding globally

Search / Filter

Type in the search bar at the top of the panel to filter branches by name. The filter applies to all sections simultaneously. Press Escape to clear the search.

Keyboard Operations

With the Branches panel focused:

Switching between Git Panel tabs:

Checkout

Press Enter (or double-click) on any branch to check it out.

If your working tree has uncommitted changes, a dialog appears with three options:

• Stash — automatically stashes changes, then checks out
• Force — discards changes and checks out
• Cancel — aborts the checkout

Create Branch

Press n to open the inline branch creation form:

1. Type the new branch name
2. Optionally change the start point (defaults to HEAD)
3. Toggle “Checkout after create” (on by default)
4. Press Enter to confirm or Escape to cancel

Delete Branch

Press d to delete the selected branch.

• Uses safe delete (git branch -d) by default — refuses to delete unmerged branches
• A confirmation prompt lets you switch to force-delete (git branch -D) if needed
• Deleting the current branch or the default branch (main, master, develop) is blocked

Rename Branch

Press R to edit the branch name inline. The current name is pre-filled. Press Enter to confirm or Escape to cancel.

Merge

Press M to merge the selected branch into the current branch. The merge runs in the background. Conflicts are reported in the Git Panel header.

Rebase

Press r to rebase the current branch onto the selected branch. Runs in the background; conflicts are reported.

Push

Press P to push the current branch. If no upstream is set, TUICommander automatically configures the tracking relationship (--set-upstream origin <branch>).

Pull

Press p to pull the current branch from its upstream.

Fetch

Press f to fetch all remotes (git fetch --all).

Context Menu

Right-click any branch for the full context menu:

Stale and Merged Indicators

• Stale (dimmed): the branch has no commits in the last 30 days — a visual cue that it may be abandoned
• Merged badge: the branch has been merged into the default branch and is safe to delete