Prune stale merged and abandoned remote branches

[chubes4]

Problem

The repo has many remote branches left behind after merged PRs and older feature/refactor attempts. Some are merged into main; others appear abandoned or superseded.

This makes branch searches noisy when tracking whether runtime cleanup work is still pending.

Scope

Audit remote branches and classify them as:

• merged and safe to delete.
• generated/evidence branches that should be retained or expired under a policy.
• abandoned work that should be linked to an issue or deleted.
• active work that should have an open PR or tracker.

Acceptance criteria

• Merged branches for closed PRs are deleted or explicitly retained with a reason.
• Unmerged branches are mapped to open PRs/issues or removed when superseded.
• Any branch retention policy is documented briefly so future audits are not ambiguous.
• No active work is deleted without confirming its tracker/owner.

Evidence

A branch audit showed stale merged issue branches such as fix/issue-261-runtime-action-adapter, fix/issue-287-wordpress-state-artifacts, and fix/issue-288-browser-actions, plus many older feature/refactor branches still present remotely.

[chubes4]

Branch hygiene audit

Non-destructive audit only: I refreshed remote-tracking refs and did not delete any branches.

Criteria used:

• Merged-safe-to-delete: branch has a merged PR, or the remote branch tip is already an ancestor of origin/main.
• Abandoned/superseded: branch only maps to closed/unmerged PRs. These are deletion candidates, but I would get Chris confirmation before removing them.
• Active/retain: branch maps to an open PR, or lacks enough evidence to delete.

Summary:

• 183 merged-safe-to-delete remote branches.
• 5 abandoned/superseded remote branches that need Chris confirmation before deletion.
• 1 active branch to retain.

Active / retain

• issue/372-generic-headless-browser-agent — open PR Fix browser runner ability initialization #398 https://github.com/chubes4/wp-codebox/pull/398\n

Abandoned / superseded — confirm before deletion

• fix/artifact-bundle-verifier — closed/unmerged Add artifact bundle verifier #181 https://github.com/chubes4/wp-codebox/pull/181\n- fix/issue-220-runtime-snapshot-bundles — closed/unmerged Add runtime snapshot bundles #250 https://github.com/chubes4/wp-codebox/pull/250\n- fix/issue-262-runtime-reference-index — closed/unmerged Emit runtime replay reference index #275 https://github.com/chubes4/wp-codebox/pull/275\n- fix/per-file-artifact-hashes — closed/unmerged Verify artifact bundle file hashes #193 https://github.com/chubes4/wp-codebox/pull/193\n- issue-178-runtime-trace-contract — closed/unmerged Harden runtime episode traces #180 https://github.com/chubes4/wp-codebox/pull/180\n
  Recommended action: delete these only after Chris confirms they are no longer useful. The likely superseded pairs are:
• fix/artifact-bundle-verifier -> fix/artifact-bundle-verifier-rebased / PR Add artifact bundle verifier #184 merged
• fix/per-file-artifact-hashes -> fix/per-file-artifact-hashes-rebased / PR Verify artifact bundle file hashes #194 merged
• issue-178-runtime-trace-contract -> issue-178-runtime-trace-contract-rebased / PR Harden runtime episode traces #183 merged
• fix/issue-220-runtime-snapshot-bundles appears superseded by later runtime snapshot work, but needs confirmation.
• fix/issue-262-runtime-reference-index appears superseded by later runtime reference index work, but needs confirmation.

Merged-safe-to-delete

183 branches

• add-recipe-browser-smoke\n- apply-back-contract\n- artifact-bundle-manifest-events\n- artifact-provenance-metadata\n- artifact-redaction\n- canonical-artifacts\n- cli-entrypoint\n- content-addressed-artifacts\n- cookbook-bbpress-be\n- datamachine-pending-apply\n- demo-readme-polish\n- docs-product-framing\n- docs/artifact-first-readme\n- docs/clarify-blueprint-replay-scope\n- docs/issue-35-architecture-vision\n- docs/package-ownership-boundaries\n- docs/readme-components\n- docs/readme-refresh\n- docs/transfer-readiness-checklist\n- eval/browser-probe-scripting\n- examples/datamachine-bundle-recipe\n- extract-artifact-builders\n- feat-310-interaction-probe\n- feat-socials-crop-modal-probe\n- feat/cli-command-schema-discovery\n- feat/issue-80-preview-artifact\n- feat/issue-88-inheritance-transport\n- feat/portable-recipe-sources\n- feat/preview-port\n- feat/runtime-stack-mounts\n- feature-preview-artifact-targets\n- feature/artifact-recipe-metadata-diffs\n- feature/bounded-site-seeds\n- feature/browser-playground-session\n- feature/browser-runtime-reference-index\n- feature/caller-mu-plugin-runtime\n- feature/generic-episodes\n- feature/generic-inherited-secret-env\n- feature/generic-runtime-evidence\n- feature/live-site-backup-seeds\n- feature/playground-lazy-backend\n- feature/plugin-native-agent-sandbox\n- feature/recipe-validate\n- feature/seeded-workspaces\n- feature/site-seed-importer-registry\n- feature/wordpress-ability-command\n- feature/wordpress-phpunit-command\n- feature/workflow-before-after-phases\n- feature/workspace-recipes\n- feature/wp-cli-runtime-command\n- fix-agent-sandbox-timeout\n- fix-core-phpunit-provisioning\n- fix-issue-155-ability-category\n- fix-issue-279-browser-runtime-plugins\n- fix/artifact-bundle-verifier-rebased\n- fix/artifact-git-patch-file-status\n- fix/artifact-verifier-hardlink-policy\n- fix/bbpress-cookbook-plugin-activation\n- fix/bench-bootstrap-files\n- fix/bench-rest-route-activation\n- fix/bench-wp-cli-workloads\n- fix/boot-active-plugins\n- fix/browser-remote-mu-plugin-url\n- fix/browser-runner-playground-detection\n- fix/browser-runtime-bundle-delivery\n- fix/browser-runtime-local-plugin-path\n- fix/browser-runtime-mu-plugin-packages\n- fix/bundle-cli-in-plugin\n- fix/cli-agent-sandbox-strict-outcomes\n- fix/cloudflared-preview-empty-body\n- fix/explicit-workspace-seed-excludes\n- fix/git-package-exports\n- fix/git-package-workspace-deps\n- fix/homeboy-build-script\n- fix/interrupted-recipe-artifacts\n- fix/issue-170-login-ability-output\n- fix/issue-172-agent-sandbox-summary\n- fix/issue-207-bundled-runtime\n- fix/issue-221-browser-evidence\n- fix/issue-239-wp-cli-public-api\n- fix/issue-261-runtime-action-adapter\n- fix/issue-399-agent-runtime-failure\n- fix/issue-410-browser-runtime-package-delivery\n- fix/issue-410-local-package-installer\n- fix/issue-410-original-loopback-fetch\n- fix/issue-416-playground-cors-proxy\n- fix/issue-416-runtime-component-registry\n- fix/issue-427-run-registry\n- fix/issue-428-sandbox-git-tools\n- fix/issue-429-workspace-diff-artifacts\n- fix/issue-430-completion-outcome\n- fix/issue-79-per-site-recipes\n- fix/issue-84-runtime-error-surfacing\n- fix/issue-97-preserve-test-result\n- fix/linux-npm-install-fsevents\n- fix/orchestrator-boundary-docs\n- fix/package-playground-runtime-deps\n- fix/per-file-artifact-hashes-rebased\n- fix/persist-runtime-episode-traces\n- fix/playground-archive-validation\n- fix/playground-boot-failure-cleanup\n- fix/preview-bind-address\n- fix/preview-public-url-canonical-redirect\n- fix/redactor-common-scalars\n- fix/remove-consumer-specific-wp-codebox-references\n- fix/runtime-crash-diagnostics\n- fix/runtime-mu-plugin-load-mode\n- fix/runtime-snapshot-artifact-refs\n- fix/runtime-wp-cli-shell-chains\n- fix/sandbox-local-workspace-backend\n- fix/sandbox-session-not-found\n- fix/sealed-run-attestation\n- fix/server-package-runtime-components\n- fix/wp-codebox-sandbox-chat-mode\n- fix/wp-codebox-seed-excludes\n- followup-bench-runtime-command\n- frontend-review-contract\n- harden-sandbox-boundaries\n- issue-168-theme-check\n- issue-177-workspace-policy-checker\n- issue-178-runtime-trace-contract-rebased\n- issue-220-replayable-runtime-snapshots\n- issue-405-runtime-overlays\n- issue-65-apply-audit\n- issue-698-bench-command\n- issue/31-session-resolution\n- issue/71-apply-back-evidence\n- normalized-test-results-artifact\n- package-distribution-readiness\n- pr-421\n- real-sandbox-agent-loop\n- recipe-entrypoint\n- refactor/artifact-evidence-dedupe\n- refactor/browser-artifact-helpers\n- refactor/browser-command-runners\n- refactor/browser-command-runtime\n- refactor/browser-interaction-helpers\n- refactor/browser-metrics-helpers\n- refactor/browser-probe-helpers\n- refactor/check-artifact-helpers\n- refactor/cli-agent-sandbox\n- refactor/cli-command-handlers\n- refactor/cli-command-router\n- refactor/cli-recipe-dry-run\n- refactor/cli-recipe-run-handler\n- refactor/cli-recipe-sources\n- refactor/cli-recipe-validation-policy\n- refactor/cli-runtime-command-wrappers\n- refactor/core-artifact-contracts\n- refactor/core-index-runtime-contracts\n- refactor/core-index-thin-api\n- refactor/core-recipe-contracts\n- refactor/core-runtime-contracts\n- refactor/core-runtime-episode-runner\n- refactor/core-runtime-episodes\n- refactor/core-simple-contracts\n- refactor/mounted-artifact-capture\n- refactor/observation-artifacts\n- refactor/php-bootstrap-helpers\n- refactor/playground-cli-runner\n- refactor/playground-command-errors\n- refactor/playground-command-handlers\n- refactor/playground-index-router\n- refactor/preview-server-helpers\n- refactor/remove-studio-web-doc-coupling\n- refactor/runtime-artifact-helpers\n- refactor/runtime-command-runners\n- refactor/runtime-diagnostics-helpers\n- refactor/runtime-episode-contracts\n- refactor/runtime-seams\n- refactor/runtime-snapshot-helpers\n- refactor/runtime-wp-cli-bridge\n- refactor/shared-artifact-helpers\n- refactor/shared-strip-undefined\n- release-config\n- remove-backend-flag\n- sandbox-batch-model-config\n- scoped-secret-env\n- separate-task-api\n- task-input-schema\n- verify/transfer-readiness-final\n- wordpress-context-probe\n- wordpress-run-php\n

Note: pr-421 has no PR metadata from gh pr list, but its tip is already an ancestor of origin/main and matches the merged PR #421 line of work, so I classified it as merged-safe.