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

The Branches panel is mouse-first: all branch actions live in the right-click context menu, the + (New branch) button, and row double-click. Only list navigation is on the keyboard:

Switching between Git Panel tabs:

Checkout

Double-click any branch (or right-click → Checkout) 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

Click the + (New branch) button in the panel header 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

Right-click a branch → Delete.

• 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

Delete merged branches (bulk)

When one or more local branches are already merged into the default branch, a broom button (with a count badge) appears in the Branches tab header. Click it to delete them all at once, after confirming a dialog that lists the targets. Each deletion uses safe git branch -d, so a branch that isn’t truly merged is kept rather than force-deleted.

Rename Branch

Right-click a branch → Rename to edit the branch name inline. The current name is pre-filled. Press Enter to confirm or Escape to cancel.

Merge

Right-click a branch → Merge into Current to merge it into the current branch. The merge runs in the background, and the result is shown as a toast: a conflict error on failure, “Already up to date” when there was nothing to merge, or a success toast with a one-click Delete branch action to clean up the branch you just merged.

Rebase

Right-click a branch → Rebase Current onto This to rebase the current branch onto the selected branch. Runs in the background; conflicts are reported.

Push

Right-click a branch → Push. If no upstream is set, TUICommander automatically configures the tracking relationship (--set-upstream origin <branch>).

Pull

Right-click a branch → Pull to pull the current branch from its upstream.

Fetch

Right-click a branch → Fetch 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