When agents do the work, review becomes the bottleneck: ten branches come back, and switching your checkout ten times to read them isn't an option. Everything on this page is checkout-free — it reads the server (or your local repo) and prints, without touching your working tree.
Triage first#
oak branch triage --remote # every open branch, scored
oak branch triage --remote --only mergeable # just the ones ready to land
oak branch triage --remote --json # for an agent doing the triage
Each row carries:
| Field | Values |
|---|---|
| Mergeability | clean, conflicts |
| Contribution | contributes; or empty / superseded_exact for a branch that adds nothing main doesn't already have |
| CI | the branch head's CI status |
| Recommended action | validate_then_merge, resolve, close, rebuild, review, do_not_merge |
--only mergeable | closable | ambiguous sorts a fleet before you read a single diff: land the first bucket, close the second (agent runs that produced nothing new), and spend your attention on the third. --analysis-depth trades speed for depth, --limit N caps how many branches get the deep pass, and --against <branch> compares against something other than main.
Review one branch#
oak branch review fix-auth--a1b2c3d4 --remote --merge-preview
oak branch review gathers the evidence for one branch: what it changed, what it's based on, and — with --merge-preview — whether it would merge cleanly, plus a merge-safety verdict that flags a prediction which would destroy work already on main. Add --json for agents.
Read a diff without switching#
oak diff fix-auth--a1b2c3d4 # full-screen viewer: what the branch contributes
oak branch diff fix-auth--a1b2c3d4 --remote # summary of changed files
oak branch diff fix-auth--a1b2c3d4 --remote --print # the patch, to stdout
oak branch diff fix-auth--a1b2c3d4 --remote --json --hunks # the patch, as JSON
oak diff 3f9fab02 8fcf5aed # any two commits
Branch diffs come in three modes, chosen with --diff-mode (oak branch diff) or --mode (oak diff):
| Mode | Answers |
|---|---|
contribution | What did this branch add since it forked from main? The honest "what did the agent do". |
tree | How do the two heads differ right now? (Default for oak branch diff.) |
net-merge | What would main gain if this branch merged now? |
For large branches, --changed-files-limit / --changed-files-offset page through the file list and --max-bytes caps the patch text in JSON output.
Preview a merge train#
oak branch train fix-auth--a1b2 add-search--e5f6 bump-tokio--c9d0 --remote
oak branch train previews landing several independent branches in order — would each still merge cleanly after the ones before it? — without publishing anything. Up to 32 branches.
The full-screen viewers#
oak diff and oak log open full-screen on a terminal. Both take the keys you already know:
| Style | Keys |
|---|---|
| Arrows | ↑ ↓, PgUp / PgDn, Home / End |
| less / vi | j k, Space (page down), b (page up), d / u (half page), g / G, / to search |
| emacs | ^N / ^P, ^V / M-v, M-< / M->, ^S to search, ^G to cancel |
In oak diff, Tab or the arrow keys move between the file tree and the diff pane, and Space folds a directory in the tree. Press ? in either viewer for the complete list. Pipe the output, or pass --print / --json, to skip the viewer.
In the browser#
The repo's Branches page on oak.space lists every open branch with its description and a CI status chip. Each branch opens a detail page with:
- the full diff, file by file;
- per-workflow CI pills that link to live run logs;
- a Seen by list — opening a branch page records that you've read it;
- Merge, Update (merge the latest
maininto the branch), and Close / Reopen buttons, plus conflict resolution in the browser when a merge would conflict.
Check several branches on the list and Merge selected lands them one after another — usually how a fan-out ends when the branches don't overlap.
Then land it#
oak switch fix-auth--a1b2c3d4 # fetches it if needed
oak merge --wait # wait for CI, then squash onto main