reader: someone installing or running meow-git on Pi answers: what meow-git provides, what it adds to a session and how to install it kind: reference describes: [@meowshed/meow-git@0.6.1]

@meowshed/meow-git

Refuses a git commit on the trunk the repository declares, and checks every commit a push would publish for the declared commit convention and for a good signature, before the push runs. It keeps nothing in context on every turn. Distributed as a Pi package.

Install it

pi install npm:@meowshed/meow-git

The paw executable ships with @meowshed/meow-core alone (REQ-4612): this package's launchers run their subcommands through it, so install the core package beside this one for the binary-backed checks. Without it, every check reports unrun and lets the command through.

pi install npm:@meowshed/meow-core   # carries the binary the launchers run

Installing from this repository's checkout is the development install: it loads the package in place and runs no lifecycle script.

Declare your policy

Put it under [git] in .meowpaw/profile.toml:

[git]
trunk = "main"
require_signatures = true

Branch names

The push guard refuses a push from a branch whose name carries a date, such as 2026-09-26 or 20260926, or the author's name, because the code host already stores both. Name the branch for the change instead, such as fix/1234-read-the-trunk; an issue number followed by other numbers isn't read as a date.

Rebuild a stack

When a branch low in a stack changes, run meow-git restack with the stack's branches from the bottom up to rebase each onto the one below it, the first onto the trunk you declare under [git]:

meow-git restack feat/read-the-base feat/report-the-checks feat/review-one-layer

It rebases a branch only where its base moved, and where you require signatures it signs every commit it writes again. It pushes nothing. For each branch it rewrote, it prints updated: and the push that publishes it, with the lease naming the remote-tracking revision it read before the rewrite, so the push replaces only the revision you last saw. A conflict aborts that rebase, so neither side is lost, prints conflict: with the branch and its files, and exits 1. Wherever it stops, it prints updated: for each branch it rewrote and not updated: for each it didn't reach. If a branch has uncommitted changes or is checked out in another working tree, it rewrites nothing and names that branch.

The pack is current as of git 2.56.0, observed on 2026-10-24.

Read a subcommand's help

meow-git --help lists the subcommands, and meow-git <subcommand> --help names what it determines, what you read to reach the same answer without the tool, and the first word of each kind of line it prints. A test holds each subcommand's output to those words.

Hooks

commit-guard stops a commit on the declared trunk; the meow-scm:commit skill says why, and mise run layers fails a trunk with a commit GitHub didn't make. push-guard stops a push of a commit whose message or signature fails the declared convention; the meow-scm:commit skill says why, and mise run layers fails a branch whose commits fail it. irreversible-guard asks the person before each push in a session they attend, and never answers for them; rule M25 of the meow-flow:method skill says why, and mise run test-crate fails a guard whose second push doesn't ask again.