ck:ship

Ship: Unified Ship Pipeline

Single command to ship a feature branch. Fully automated — only stops for test failures, critical review issues, or major version bumps.

Inspired by: gstack /ship by Garry Tan. Adapted for framework-agnostic, multi-language support.

Arguments

Flag	Effect
official	Ship to default branch (main/master). Full pipeline with docs + journal
beta	Ship to dev/beta branch. Lighter pipeline, skip docs update
(none)	Auto-detect: if base branch is main/master → official, else → beta
--skip-tests	Skip test step (use when tests already passed)
--skip-review	Skip pre-landing review step
--skip-journal	Skip journal writing step
--skip-docs	Skip docs update step
--dry-run	Show what would happen without executing

Ship Mode Detection

If argument = "official" → target = main/master (auto-detect default branch)
If argument = "beta"     → target = dev/beta (auto-detect dev branch)
If no argument           → infer from current branch naming:
  - feature/* hotfix/* bugfix/* → official (target main)
  - dev/* beta/* experiment/*  → beta (target dev/beta)
  - unclear                    → AskUserQuestion

When to Stop (blocking)

• On target branch already → abort
• Merge conflicts that can't be auto-resolved → stop, show conflicts
• Test failures → stop, show failures
• Critical review issues → AskUserQuestion per issue
• Major/minor version bump needed → AskUserQuestion

When NOT to Stop

• Uncommitted changes → always include them
• Patch version bump → auto-decide
• Changelog content → auto-generate
• Commit message → auto-compose
• No version file → skip version step silently
• No changelog → skip changelog step silently

Pipeline

Step 1:  Pre-flight      → Branch check, mode detection, status, diff analysis
Step 2:  Link Issues      → Find/create related GitHub issues
Step 3:  Merge target     → Fetch + merge origin/<target-branch>
Step 4:  Run tests        → Auto-detect test runner, run, check results
Step 5:  Review           → Two-pass checklist review (critical + informational)
Step 6:  Version bump     → Auto-detect version file, bump patch/minor
Step 7:  Changelog        → Auto-generate from commits + diff
Step 8:  Journal          → Write technical journal via /ck:journal
Step 9:  Docs update      → Update project docs via /ck:docs update (official only)
Step 10: Commit           → Conventional commit with version/changelog
Step 11: Push             → git push -u origin <branch>
Step 12: Create PR        → gh pr create with structured body + linked issues

Detailed steps: Load references/ship-workflow.md Auto-detection: Load references/auto-detect.md PR template: Load references/pr-template.md

Token Efficiency Rules

• Steps 4 (tests) and 5 (review): delegate to tester and code-reviewer subagents — don't inline
• Steps 8 (journal) and 9 (docs): run in background — don't block pipeline
• Step 2 (issues): use single gh command batch — avoid multiple API calls
• Skip steps early via flags to save tokens on unnecessary work
• Beta mode auto-skips: docs update (Step 9)
• Capture step outputs inline — don't re-read files already in context

Quick Start

User says /ck:ship → run full pipeline → output PR URL. User says /ck:ship beta → ship to dev branch with lighter pipeline. User says /ck:ship official → ship to main with full docs + journal.

Output Format

✓ Pre-flight: branch feature/foo, 5 commits, +200/-50 lines (mode: official)
✓ Issues: linked #42, created #43
✓ Merged: origin/main (up to date)
✓ Tests: 42 passed, 0 failed
✓ Review: 0 critical, 2 informational
✓ Version: 1.2.3 → 1.2.4
✓ Changelog: updated
✓ Journal: written (background)
✓ Docs: updated (background)
✓ Committed: feat(auth): add OAuth2 login flow
✓ Pushed: origin/feature/foo
✓ PR: https://github.com/org/repo/pull/123 (linked: #42, #43)

Important Rules

• Never skip tests (unless --skip-tests). If tests fail, stop.
• Never force push. Regular git push only.
• Never ask for confirmation except for critical review issues and major/minor version bumps.
• Auto-detect everything. Test runner, version file, changelog format, target branch — detect from project files.
• Framework-agnostic. Works for Node, Python, Rust, Go, Ruby, Java, or any project with a test command.
• Subagent delegation. Use tester for tests, code-reviewer for review, journal-writer for journal, docs-manager for docs. Don't inline.
• Background tasks. Journal and docs run in background to not block the pipeline.