How to Adopt a Branch in CLI

Documentation on adopting a branch with av CLI from Aviator with the command av branch.

Aviator CLI needs to maintain the metadata for branches so that it can remember the parent-child relationships among them. If you create branches with av branch, the metadata is created upon branch creation. You can attach the metadata for branches that are created with git branch.

Create a repository

We will use an example repository from https://github.com/octocat/hello-world. Clone it and initialize the Aviator CLI.

$ git clone https://github.com/octocat/hello-world
Cloning into 'hello-world'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 13, done.
remote: Total 13 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 13
Receiving objects: 100% (13/13), done.
$ cd hello-world
$ av init
Successfully initialized repository for use with av!

Creating a branch outside of av

Let's say instead of using av branch, we used a normal Git command to create a branch and a commit.

$ git switch --create mytopic
Switched to a new branch 'mytopic'
$ git commit --allow-empty --message="New commit"
[mytopic d384683] New commit

Now we can see, the newly created branch mytopic is not tracked in av tree, but it's shown in git branch.

$ av tree
$ git branch -vv
  master  7fd1a60 [origin/master] Merge pull request #6 from Spaceghost/patch-1
* mytopic d384683 New commit

Adopting a branch with av adopt

By running av adopt specifying the parent branch (in this case master) adds metadata for the current branch mytopic. Now, if you run av tree, you can see that mytopic is correctly recognized as a child of master.

$ av adopt
Choose which branches to adopt (Use space to select / deselect).
  * mytopic (HEAD, chosen for adoption)
  │   New commit
  │
  * master

Adopting an existing PR

If you have also created a PR without using av, you can also synchronize your local av tree to adopt that PR. To do so, first adopt the branch as described above and then run av sync .

$ av adopt
Choose which branches to adopt (Use space to select / deselect).
  * mytopic (HEAD, chosen for adoption)
  │   New commit
  │
  * master  
$ av sync
  ✓ GitHub fetch is done
  ✓ Restack is done

    * mytopic-testing 6829015
    │
    * master fbdf1f6

  ✓ Pushed to GitHub

    Following branches are pushed.

      mytopic-testing
        Remote: 6829015 New commit 2025-10-26 11:36:18 -0700 -0700 (2 minutes ago)
               Parent=
        Local:  6829015 New commit 2025-10-26 11:36:18 -0700 -0700 (2 minutes ago)
               Parent=master
        PR:     https://github.com/aviator-co/mergeit/pull/9914

  ✓ No merged branches to delete