v0.8.14 - Local-first branches with git-style DWIM checkout

[0.8.14] - 2026-09-07

In plain terms: branches are now handled the same way git does — mostly
on your own computer first, not on the server. Before, creating or checking
out a branch told the server about it before it existed locally, and if a
branch existed on the server but not on your machine, the app quietly made
a "stand-in" local branch in the wrong place, so your work and the server's
history could drift apart and the next push could get stuck. Now: a branch
is always created locally first and only appears on the server the first
time you push it; if you check out a branch that lives only on the server,
it is downloaded and recreated exactly; and the server side (which shipped
with Deltix-Server v0.9.3) creates the branch on its end the first time
you push to it. The "remote branch without local branch" situation that
started the recent sync incidents is now impossible, and there is no need
for any manual repair step.

Added

• deltix checkout <branch> and deltix branch checkout <repo> <branch>
  now fetch-and-materialize a branch that exists only on the server: pull
  its full history, recreate its tables onto origin/<branch> (git fetch),
  then create the local branch at that ref and switch to it (git DWIM).
  This is the fix for the "remote branch without local branch" state from
  issue #57 — the client never needs a manual recovery path to publish.
• New shared helper checkout-branch.ts (checkoutBranchLocalFirst()) used
  by both deltix checkout and deltix branch checkout.

Fixed

• deltix checkout used to create a missing local branch at the wrong
  commit. VersioningLocalService.checkoutBranch() previously created a
  not-yet-existing branch with dolt checkout -b <branch>, which starts at
  the current head. When origin/<branch> had already been materialized
  (a previous fetch/pull/push of that branch), the new local branch
  diverged from its remote from the very first commit — reproducing the
  remote-vs-local drift. It now does git-style DWIM: if origin/<branch>
  exists it runs dolt checkout -b <branch> origin/<branch>, and only
  falls back to the current-head create when the branch exists nowhere on
  the machine. The same DWIM is used by the "sql-server is running" branch
  of checkout() (the server is stopped, checkout runs, restarted).
• deltix branch create was server-first. It created the branch on the
  server and only fell back to a local create when the server was
  unreachable — the very flow that left a branch existing remotely with no
  local counterpart. It is now local-first (git-style): only the local
  branch is created, and the message points at deltix push to publish it.
  A server-only create remains as a fallback only when the repo has never
  been cloned/pulled locally (no local data dir).
• Applying a pull onto a branch that had never existed locally failed.
  applyCommits() passed the missing branch head to dolt branch and hit
  a dolt "invalid usage" error. It now bootstraps the replay from the
  repo's root commit — the same base deltix clone starts from — so a
  full-history pull onto a fresh origin/<branch> re-creates the branch as
  a clean line of commits that can then be DWIM-checked out.

Tests

• New integration tests (real dolt, guarded) prove both fixes: (1) DWIM
  checkout creates the local branch at origin/<branch>'s head rather
  than the current head — the exact divergence scenario from issue #57; (2)
  a full-history applyCommits() onto a never-materialized branch followed
  by DWIM checkout yields the correct table rows on the new branch.
• 143 client unit tests pass; bun run lint clean (no errors).

Full Changelog: v0.8.13...v0.8.14