fix(worker): Fixed issue where searching for refs/heads/<default_branch> would return no matches.

[brendan-kellam]

Prefix refs/heads/ to the default branch for consistent searching and de-duplicate the revisions array to prevent duplicate branches/tags.

Fixes #808

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Summary by CodeRabbit

• Bug Fixes
  • Fixed an issue where searching for the default branch reference would return no matches.
  • Improved branch reference normalization and deduplication in repository indexing to ensure consistent naming conventions and prevent duplicate entries during indexing operations.

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[cursor]

Cursor Agent can help with this pull request. Just @cursor in comments and I'll start working on changes in this branch.
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[coderabbitai]

Walkthrough

The PR fixes an issue where searching for refs/heads/<default_branch> returned no matches. It normalizes the default branch reference to include the refs/heads/ prefix, deduplicates revisions to prevent duplicates, and ensures consistent revision naming during indexing.

Changes

Cohort / File(s)	Summary
Documentation CHANGELOG.md	Added Fixed section documenting resolution of issue where searching for refs/heads/<default_branch> would return no matches.
Revision normalization and deduplication packages/backend/src/repoIndexManager.ts	Normalizes default branch reference to include refs/heads/ prefix; initializes revisions from prefix-wrapped default branch or HEAD; deduplicates revisions list before indexing; ensures consistent refs/heads/... and refs/tags/... prefixes for branches and tags.

Estimated code review effort

🎯 2 (Simple) | ⏱️ ~10 minutes

Possibly related PRs

• fix(web): Fixed issue where Sourcebot would not index the new default branch when changed #789: Also modifies repoIndexManager.ts to handle repository default branch/revisions computation using getLocalDefaultBranch, which interacts with the default branch normalization logic in this PR.

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5

✅ Passed checks (5 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	The PR directly fixes issue #808 by prefixing refs/heads/ to the default branch and de-duplicating revisions to enable proper searching.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	All changes are within scope: repoIndexManager.ts modifications target the core fix, and CHANGELOG.md documents the change as requested.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title accurately summarizes the main change: fixing an issue where searching for refs/heads/<default_branch> returns no matches, which directly addresses the bug described in issue #808.

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✨ Finishing touches

• 📝 Generate docstrings

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[brendan-kellam]

@cursor add a changelog entry

[cursor]

I've added the changelog entry for PR #809. The entry has been added under the "Unreleased" section in the "Fixed" category, documenting that the fix resolves the issue where searching for refs/heads/<default_branch> would return no matches.

The changelog entry has been committed and pushed to the branch.

 

[brendan-kellam]

@cursor don't make any code changes. To confirm, does this handle the case where a branch could be named heads/...? Could a branch ever be prefixed with refs/... without being refs/heads/... or refs/tags/...?

[cursor]

Looking at the current implementation, I can answer both questions:

Question 1: Does this handle a branch named heads/...?

No, the current implementation has a potential issue. If someone literally names a branch heads/something, the code would produce refs/heads/heads/something because:

• getLocalDefaultBranch() would return heads/something
• The check !defaultBranch.startsWith('refs/') would be true
• It would prepend refs/heads/ resulting in refs/heads/heads/something

This is likely a valid concern, though having a branch literally named heads/... would be unusual (but technically possible in Git).

Question 2: Could a branch be prefixed with refs/... without being refs/heads/... or refs/tags/...?

Yes, Git supports several other ref namespaces:

• refs/remotes/... - remote tracking branches
• refs/notes/... - Git notes
• refs/stash - stash entries
• refs/replace/... - replacement refs
• Custom namespaces under refs/

The current check !defaultBranch.startsWith('refs/') would leave any of these untouched, which might not be the intended behavior.

What does getLocalDefaultBranch() actually return?

To properly assess if this is an issue, we'd need to verify what format getLocalDefaultBranch() returns - does it return just the branch name (e.g., main) or could it return a full ref path? If it only returns simple branch names, the current logic should work correctly for normal cases.