Agent Merge-Conflict Arbiter

Resolve a git merge conflict between two AGENTS' branches as an impartial third
party. Agents resolving conflicts against a peer's work reliably either
overwrite the peer or abandon their own change — they lack the peer's context
and are biased toward their own side. This skill is the fix: a neutral
reconciler that receives both diffs plus both sides' stated intents and
produces a merged result, like a merge-queue arbiter.

When to Use

• Two agent branches/worktrees collide during a parallel campaign (kanban
  engineering pipeline, parallel-PR wave, multi-worktree refactor).
• git merge or git rebase halts on conflicts between two agents' work and
  neither original agent should self-adjudicate.
• Do NOT use for conflicts within a single agent's own work, or for trivial
  lockfile/generated-file conflicts (regenerate those instead).

Prerequisites

• A repo checkout containing the halted merge, or the two branch names plus
  permission to run the merge yourself.
• Both sides' intent sources: kanban completion summaries (terminal running
  loki kanban show <task-id>), PR bodies, or at minimum each branch's
  commit messages.
• The project's build/test command, if one exists.

How to Run

Standalone — a human (or agent) invokes this skill inside the conflicted
repo: load the skill, then follow the Procedure top to bottom.

Spawned neutral agent — the preferred shape in multi-agent campaigns:

• delegate_task: spawn a subagent whose task message contains the repo path,
  both branch names, and both sides' intent summaries verbatim, plus an
  instruction to follow this skill.
• Kanban-native: create a reconciliation card assigned to a third profile
  (not either worker's profile) with BOTH conflicted cards linked as parents —
  kanban_create(title="reconcile branch-a x branch-b", assignee="reconciler", parents=["t_a", "t_b"]). The parent links carry both sides' completion
  summaries into the reconciler's context automatically; the card body should
  name the repo path and the two branches.

Quick Reference

Hunk class	Definition	Resolution
disjoint-intent	The two changes serve different goals and can coexist	Combine both
same-question-different-answer	Both sides answered one design question differently	Pick ONE per stated intents; surface the decision
superseded	One side's premise no longer holds after the other's change	Keep the surviving side; note why

Impartiality contract: never favor the side that spawned you; touch ONLY
conflicted regions (no drive-by edits); every design-question pick must appear
explicitly in the hand-back summary.

Procedure

1. Gather both sides

• Run via terminal: git status (confirm the conflicted state and list
  conflicted files), git merge-base <A> <B>, then for each side
  git log --oneline <base>..<side> and git diff <base>..<side> -- <file>
  for every conflicted file. In a halted merge, HEAD is one side and
  MERGE_HEAD is the other.
• Collect each side's intent: loki kanban show <task-id> for completion
  summaries/metadata, or the PR body, or the commit messages from the log
  above. Write down one sentence of intent per side before touching any file.
• Done when: you can state both intents in your own words and have both diffs
  for every conflicted file.

2. Classify every conflicted hunk

• Open each conflicted file with read_file and locate each
  <<<<<<</=======/>>>>>>> block.
• Assign each hunk exactly one class from the Quick Reference table, judging
  by the stated intents — not by which change looks nicer.
• If a single hunk contains multiple independent decisions (e.g., new logic
  that combines cleanly PLUS a styling/rounding choice both sides answered
  differently), decompose it into sub-decisions and classify each one.
• A single file often mixes classes: one hunk may be a design collision while
  a neighboring hunk is disjoint. Classify per hunk, not per file.
• Done when: every hunk has a written class and a one-line rationale.

3. Resolve under the impartiality contract

• Edit each hunk with patch (or write_file for whole-file rewrites):
  • disjoint-intent → merge both changes so each intent is fully served.
  • same-question-different-answer → pick the answer that best serves the
    STATED intents (e.g., an intent of "strict validation" beats "quick
    default" if the task required correctness). Never split the difference
    into a hybrid neither side asked for.
  • superseded → keep the surviving side; delete the dead premise.
• Never favor the side that spawned you. If intents genuinely tie, escalate
  (block the kanban card / report back) rather than guess.
• Change nothing outside conflict markers — no formatting, renames, or
  opportunistic fixes.
• git add each resolved file via terminal.
• Done when: search_files finds no <<<<<<< markers in the repo and every
  resolved file is staged.

4. Verify

• Run the project's build/tests via terminal; at minimum import/execute the
  touched modules. Both intents must be observable in the merged behavior
  (e.g., side A's new semantics AND side B's disjoint addition both present).
• Complete the merge: git commit (the default merge message plus a body
  listing hunk decisions is fine).
• Done when: verification passes and the merge commit exists.

5. Hand back

• Produce a completion summary naming EVERY hunk decision:
  file:lines — class — which side(s) kept — rationale. For every
  same-question-different-answer hunk, state the design question and the
  answer you picked so a human can veto it — never bury a design call.
• Kanban: kanban_complete(summary=...). Standalone: print the summary.
• Done when: the summary is delivered and lists all hunks.

Pitfalls

• Self-favoring: if you were spawned by one of the conflicting agents,
  you are structurally biased — state this and weigh the other side's intent
  deliberately. Prefer the third-profile shape so this never arises.
• Splitting the difference on a design collision produces a hybrid nobody
  designed; pick one answer and surface it.
• Per-file classification: files usually mix hunk classes; classifying a
  whole file as one class silently drops a disjoint change.
• Drive-by edits make the merge unreviewable and steal decisions from the
  original agents.
• Missing intents: commit messages alone can be thin; prefer kanban
  completion summaries or PR bodies. If neither side's intent is recoverable,
  escalate instead of guessing.
• Repeat offenders: repeated conflicts on the SAME file across rounds are
  a hotspot signal, not routine reconciliation work — flag it (e.g. a
  hotspot: <path> — <reason> kanban comment) so the orchestrator decomposes
  that file, rather than serially reconciling every new collision on it.

Verification

• git status shows a clean tree on the target branch with a merge commit.
• No conflict markers remain (search_files pattern <<<<<<<).
• Build/tests pass; both sides' intents are demonstrably present or the
  dropped one is explicitly named in the summary.
• The hand-back summary enumerates every hunk with class and rationale.