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description: | Manage stacked branches and pull requests with the gh-stack GitHub CLI extension. Use when the user wants to create, push, rebase, sync, navigate, or view stacks of dependent PRs. Triggers on tasks involving stacked diffs, dependent pull requests, branch chains, or incremental code review workflows. metadata: author: github github-path: skills/gh-stack github-ref: refs/tags/v0.1.0 github-repo: https://github.com/github/gh-stack github-tree-sha: c95c8b5b4dd850f3fef007b304428f5684f2fb87 version: 0.0.9 name: gh-stack

gh-stack

gh stack is a GitHub CLI extension for managing stacked branches and pull requests. A stack is an ordered list of branches where each branch builds on the one below it, rooted on a trunk branch (typically the repo's default branch). Each branch maps to one PR whose base is the branch below it, so reviewers see only the diff for that layer.

main (trunk)
 └── auth-layer     → PR #1 (base: main)            - bottom (closest to trunk)
  └── api-endpoints → PR #2 (base: auth-layer)
   └── frontend     → PR #3 (base: api-endpoints)   - top (furthest from trunk)

The bottom of the stack is the branch closest to the trunk, and the top is the branch furthest from the trunk. Each branch inherits from the one below it. Navigation commands (up, down, top, bottom) follow this model: up moves away from trunk, down moves toward it.

When to use this skill

Use this skill when the user wants to:

• Break a large change into a chain of small, reviewable PRs
• Create, rebase, push, or sync a stack of dependent branches
• Navigate between layers of a branch stack
• View the status of stacked PRs
• Tear down and rebuild a stack to remove, reorder, or rename branches

Prerequisites

The GitHub CLI (gh) v2.0+ must be installed and authenticated. Install the extension with:

gh extension install github/gh-stack

Before using gh stack, configure git to prevent interactive prompts:

git config rerere.enabled true           # remember conflict resolutions (skips prompt on init)
git config remote.pushDefault origin     # if multiple remotes exist (skips remote picker)

Agent rules

All gh stack commands must be run non-interactively. Every command invocation must include the flags and positional arguments needed to avoid prompts, TUIs, and interactive menus. If a command would prompt for input, it will hang indefinitely.

1. Always supply branch names as positional arguments to init, add, and checkout. Running these commands without arguments triggers interactive prompts. Branch names are used exactly as given — a name is never prefixed or transformed, so gh stack add refactor/foo creates a branch named refactor/foo.
2. Always use --auto with gh stack submit to auto-generate PR titles. Without --auto, submit prompts for a title for each new PR.
3. Always use --json with gh stack view. Without --json, the command launches an interactive TUI that cannot be operated by agents. There is no other appropriate flag — always pass --json.
4. Handle multiple remotes. If more than one remote is configured, pre-configure git config remote.pushDefault origin, or pass --remote <name> to the commands that accept it: push, submit, sync, rebase, and link. checkout, modify, and trunk resolve a remote but have no --remote flag — they rely on remote.pushDefault. With multiple remotes and no configured default, these commands exit with an error in non-interactive mode.
5. Avoid branches shared across multiple stacks. If a branch belongs to multiple stacks, commands exit with code 6. Check out a non-shared branch first.
6. Plan your stack layers by dependency order before writing code. Foundational changes (models, APIs, shared utilities) go in lower branches; dependent changes (UI, consumers) go in higher branches. Think through the dependency chain before running gh stack init.
7. Use standard git add and git commit for staging and committing. This gives you full control over which changes go into each branch. The -Am shortcut is available but should not be the default approach—stacked PRs are most effective when each branch contains a deliberate, logical set of changes.
8. Navigate down the stack when you need to change a lower layer. If you're working on a frontend branch and realize you need API changes, don't hack around it at the current layer. Navigate to the appropriate branch (gh stack down, gh stack checkout, or gh stack bottom), make and commit the changes there, run gh stack rebase --upstack, then navigate back up to continue.
9. Use gh stack link for external tool workflows. When branches are managed by an external tool (jj, Sapling, etc.), use gh stack link branch-a branch-b. link does not rely on local tracking state and is intended for API-driven PR and stack management. Provide at least two branches/PRs to create or update a stack, or a stack number followed by the new branches/PRs to append them to the top of an existing stack (e.g. gh stack link 7 branch-c).
10. Use gh stack merge --yes to merge stacked PRs. gh pr merge does not work with stacked PRs. In a non-interactive terminal gh stack merge runs without prompting and merges the entire stack (bottom to top) atomically; pass --yes to be explicit. Scope the merge by passing a pull request number (gh stack merge 42 --yes merges everything up to and including PR #42) or a stack number (gh stack merge 7 --yes, which needs no local checkout). Choose the method with --squash, --rebase, --merge, or --merge-method <method>; without one, the last-used method is used. The merge is all-or-nothing — if any PR can't be merged, none are, and the failure reason is reported. Only basic pull request state is checked before merging (open and not a draft); bypassing merge requirements is not supported for stacks. If the base branch uses a merge queue, the stack is added to the queue instead of merging directly: the queue chooses the merge method (any method you pass is ignored with a warning), and the pull requests are added to the queue together but merge as the queue processes them, so they may land in separate groups rather than all at once.

Never do any of the following — each triggers an interactive prompt or TUI that will hang:

• ❌ gh stack view or gh stack view --short — always use gh stack view --json
• ❌ gh stack submit without --auto — always use gh stack submit --auto
• ❌ gh stack init without branch arguments — always provide branch names
• ❌ gh stack add without a branch name — always provide a branch name
• ❌ gh stack checkout without an argument — always provide a PR number or branch name
• ❌ gh stack checkout <pr-number> when a different local stack already exists on those branches — this triggers an unbypassable conflict resolution prompt; use gh stack unstack --local first to remove the local tracking state (this keeps the stack on GitHub intact), then retry the checkout

Thinking about stack structure

Each branch in a stack should represent a discrete, logical unit of work that can be reviewed independently. The changes within a branch should be cohesive—they belong together and make sense as a single PR.

Dependency chain

Stacked branches form a dependency chain: each branch builds on the one below it. This means foundational changes must go in lower (earlier) branches, and code that depends on them goes in higher (later) branches.

Plan your layers before writing code. For example, a full-stack feature might be structured like this (use branch names relevant to your actual task, not these generic ones):

main (trunk)
 └── data-models    ← shared types, database schema
  └── api-endpoints ← API routes that use the models
   └── frontend-ui  ← UI components that call the APIs
    └── integration ← tests that exercise the full stack

This is illustrative — choose branch names and layer boundaries that reflect the specific work you're doing. The key principle is: if code in one layer depends on code in another, the dependency must be in the same branch or a lower one.

Branch naming

Choose a clear, descriptive branch name for each layer that reflects the concern it contains (e.g., auth, api-routes, frontend). Branch names are used exactly as you provide them to init and add — nothing is prepended or transformed. Slashes are allowed and are treated as part of the name (e.g., gh stack add refactor/foo creates a branch named refactor/foo).

Staging changes deliberately

The main reason to use git add and git commit directly is to control which changes go into which branch. When you have multiple files in your working tree, you can stage a subset for the current branch, commit them, then create a new branch and stage the rest there:

# You're on data-models with several new files in your working tree.
# Stage only the model files for this branch:
git add internal/models/user.go internal/models/session.go
git commit -m "Add user and session models"

git add db/migrations/001_create_users.sql
git commit -m "Add user table migration"

# Now create a new branch for the API layer and stage the API files there:
gh stack add api-routes # created & switched to the api-routes branch
git add internal/api/routes.go internal/api/handlers.go
git commit -m "Add user API routes"

This keeps each branch focused on one concern. Multiple commits per branch are fine — the key is that all commits in a branch relate to the same logical concern, and changes that belong to a different concern go in a different branch.

When to create a new branch

Create a new branch (gh stack add) when you're starting a different concern that depends on what you've built so far. Signs it's time for a new branch:

• You're switching from backend to frontend work
• You're moving from core logic to tests or documentation
• The next set of changes has a different reviewer audience
• The current branch's PR is already large enough to review

One stack, one story

Think of a stack from the reviewer's perspective: the stack of PRs should tell a cohesive story about a feature or project. A reviewer should be able to read the PRs in sequence and understand the progression of changes, with each PR being a small, logical piece of the whole.

When to use a single stack: All the branches are part of the same feature, project, or closely related effort. Even if the work spans multiple concerns (models, API, frontend), they're all building toward the same goal.

When to create a separate stack: The work is unrelated to your current stack — a different feature, a bug fix in an unrelated area, or an independent refactor. Don't mix unrelated work into a single stack just because you happen to be working on both. Start a new stack with gh stack init or switch to an existing stack with gh stack checkout for each distinct effort.

Small, incidental fixes (e.g., fixing a typo you noticed) can go in the current stack if they're trivial. But if a change grows into its own project, it deserves its own stack.

Quick reference

| Task | Command | | --------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------- | | Create a stack | gh stack init auth | | Create a stack of multiple branches | gh stack init auth api frontend | | Adopt existing branches | gh stack init existing-branch-a existing-branch-b | | Set custom trunk | gh stack init --base develop branch-a | | Add a branch to stack |