Fork discipline — minimum diff, rebase-friendly, upstream-aligned

rule Wed Jun 24 2026 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) ruleforksgitrebasesubmoduleminimum-diff

Fork discipline

Rule

Forked repos in the family follow strict discipline so upstream updates rebase cleanly. NEVER apply this rule to non-fork repos.

Owner — which org / account holds the fork

All forks live on oriz-org by default. Reason: GitHub org-level secrets only propagate within the org. A fork on a personal account can't inherit oriz-org's 61 shared secrets, which means any CI in the fork must duplicate-manage credentials. Solo dev = same person, so the "brand vs personal" distinction was about recruiter signal — pinned-repo placement covers that without splitting the secrets pool.

The on-disk submodule path is repos/oriz/frk/<bucket>/<category>/<upstream-name>/. Personal experiments that never see CI can live on chirag127 if they aren't planned as oriz-family work (the c127/ disk tree is reserved for that case; today it's empty). Drive-by forks (one-line PR forks, personal experiments, archived exploration) → chirag127/<upstream-name>.

Layout

Disk path: repos/oriz/frk/<bucket>/<category>/<upstream-name>/ (default; everything lives in oriz-org)
GitHub slug: NOT renamed — matches upstream slug (oriz-org/<upstream-name>)
Submodule path on disk: matches upstream name (which matches GH slug)
Internal package.json name: MAY be customized via additive override (e.g. @chirag127/oriz-<upstream-name>-fork) but only as a thin patch

Exception: shipping the fork as a distinct product

If the fork is published as its own product (Chrome Web Store listing, App Store entry, separate npm package), or if we patch it materially enough to want a distinct identity, the GitHub slug + disk folder SHOULD be renamed to a convention-compliant slug (e.g. dearrow-plus-bs-ext, not DeArrow). Reasons:

Store listings reject duplicate names anyway.
A distinct slug communicates "this is our shipped variant" to anyone landing on the GitHub repo or store page.
The family naming convention (repo-naming-suffixes) applies to forks too: browser extensions get -bs-ext, CLIs get -cli, etc. Lowercase, hyphenated, role-suffixed.
Upstream rebase still works — set upstream to the original repo and rebase as usual; the slug doesn't affect git rebase.

When you rename, keep the on-disk folder, GitHub slug, and CWS/store name aligned to one another. The internal package.json name can match the new slug. Document the rename in the per-fork knowledge/divergence.md.

Minimum-diff principle

ALL changes must be minimum-diff with upstream:

No reformatting the whole codebase to match family Prettier/Biome — keep upstream style
No renaming files / dirs unless strictly necessary
Additive overrides preferred over inline edits (e.g. config overlay file vs. modifying upstream config)
Patches applied as small isolated commits with clear fork: prefix so cherry-pick is trivial
Pin to upstream tags, not arbitrary commits — rebase target is upstream/v1.2.3, not upstream/main HEAD
Read upstream HEAD before any fork edit to understand what's there; aim for changes that survive git rebase upstream/<tag> cleanly

Minimize future merge conflicts

When you DO need to edit upstream files (because an additive overlay isn't practical — e.g. you're adding a UI toggle that has to live in upstream's settings UI files), write the patch to survive future upstream evolution:

Mark every inserted line with a <fork-slug>: comment (e.g. // oriz-fork:, ) so git grep oriz-fork locates every divergence point during rebase.
Insert lines adjacent to stable anchors (a long-lived nearby symbol / element). Conflicts trigger when upstream changes the anchor; pick an anchor that's stable across releases.
Insert, don't modify, where possible. If you must touch an upstream line, prefer to add a new local variable that wraps the old behavior rather than rewriting the call site:
```
// upstream:
setCustomTitle(formattedTitle, ...);
// fork:
const displayTitle = flag ? `${formattedTitle} (...)` : formattedTitle;
setCustomTitle(displayTitle, ...);
```
This keeps the call site signature identical; future upstream edits to the call arguments don't always conflict.
No drive-by reformatting of the touched file. Leave indentation, spacing, and line breaks of unmodified upstream lines exactly as they were.
Document the divergence in knowledge/divergence.md (per-fork knowledge folder, see below). List every file + the conflict-risk level so the next rebase has a roadmap.

Per-fork knowledge folder

Every fork has repos/oriz/frk/<name>/knowledge/:

index.md — what we changed + why
rebase.md — how to pull upstream updates (commands + conflict-resolution notes)
divergence.md — list of files we touched, why, and the upstream lines they patch

Upstream remote pattern

Every fork's .git/config has TWO remotes:

[remote "origin"]
    url = https://github.com/<our-org>/<upstream-name>.git
[remote "upstream"]
    url = https://github.com/<upstream-owner>/<upstream-name>.git

Weekly cron fetches upstream/main + upstream/<latest-tag> and opens a rebase PR if anything new lands.

Fork detection + audit

GH API GET /repos/<owner>/<name> returns fork: true + parent.full_name. A monthly audit job sweeps every repo in the family, flags mis-categorized forks (e.g. a repo marked fork: true but not under repos/oriz/frk/), and opens an issue.

Cross-refs

repo-naming.md — non-fork naming rules
decisions/architecture/submodule-pattern.md — submodule discipline