fix: skip empty v1 orphan seed under git-refs backend

[gtrrz-victor]

https://entire.io/gh/entireio/cli/trails/910

Problem

Running entire enable and selecting the git-refs checkpoint backend still created an empty entire/checkpoints/v1 branch — surprising, since git-refs writes checkpoints to per-checkpoint refs and never touches v1.

Root cause

The enable-time seed step EnsureSetup → EnsurePrimaryRef (cmd/entire/cli/strategy/common.go) is backend-agnostic: it resolves the target ref via the hardcoded checkpoint.ResolveRefs (always entire/checkpoints/v1) and never consults checkpoints.primary. On a freshly git init'd folder with no origin and no checkpoint_remote, it falls through to createOrphanMetadataRef, unconditionally creating a vestigial empty orphan v1 that git-refs never writes to.

The git-refs backend selection is persisted correctly to settings.json before this runs — it's not a timing/ordering bug. The seed simply ignores the setting.

Fix

Gate the empty-orphan fallback in EnsurePrimaryRef on the primary backend. Under git-refs, skip the orphan seed. Scope kept minimal:

• Only the empty-orphan creation is suppressed.
• Adoption of real existing v1 data from origin / a checkpoint_remote is preserved, so legacy checkpoints stay readable.
• Fail-soft: a config-load error keeps the legacy git-branch seeding behavior.
• Reuses the existing checkpoint.PrimaryIsRefs predicate.

Test

New subtest TestEnsurePrimaryRef/skips_empty_orphan_when_primary_is_git-refs: writes a repo-local settings.json with git-refs primary, runs EnsurePrimaryRef, asserts no v1 branch is created. Red before the fix, green after.

Verification

• go test ./cmd/entire/cli/strategy/ — pass
• mise run fmt — applied
• golangci-lint v2.11.3 on the package — 0 issues

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

---

Note

Low Risk
Localized setup-path change in EnsurePrimaryRef with fail-soft config handling and a focused regression test; no auth or data-migration logic.

Overview
EnsurePrimaryRef no longer seeds an empty entire/checkpoints/v1 orphan when checkpoints primary is git-refs, fixing entire enable creating a vestigial v1 branch even though that backend only uses per-checkpoint refs.

A new primaryIsGitRefs helper reads repo-local checkpoints config (fail-soft: load errors keep legacy git-branch behavior) and gates only the empty-orphan fallbacks—after a failed/missing checkpoint_remote bootstrap and when there is no local or origin ref. Adopting existing v1 data from origin or checkpoint_remote is unchanged so legacy checkpoints stay readable.

A TestEnsurePrimaryRef subtest asserts that with {"checkpoints":{"primary":{"type":"git-refs"}}} in .entire/settings.json, no v1 branch is created on a fresh repo.

^{Reviewed by Cursor Bugbot for commit bbc8a77. Configure here.}

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR fixes an enable-time behavior where selecting the git-refs checkpoint backend still seeded an empty entire/checkpoints/v1 metadata branch. Since git-refs stores checkpoints in per-checkpoint refs and does not write to the v1 branch, the change prevents creation of a vestigial empty v1 branch while still preserving adoption of existing v1 data from origin or a configured checkpoint_remote.

Changes:

• Add a fail-soft config check to detect when the primary checkpoint backend is git-refs.
• Update EnsurePrimaryRef to skip the “create empty orphan v1” fallback when the primary backend is git-refs (but still bootstrap/adopt real v1 data when present).
• Add a regression test covering the git-refs primary case to assert no v1 branch is created.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated no comments.

File	Description
cmd/entire/cli/strategy/common.go	Gates empty-orphan v1 seeding in EnsurePrimaryRef when primary backend is git-refs, while keeping existing remote adoption behavior.
cmd/entire/cli/strategy/common_test.go	Adds a subtest ensuring EnsurePrimaryRef does not create entire/checkpoints/v1 when the repo’s primary backend is configured as git-refs.