Does it even exist in my local repo, or not, until it has been "handled"?
Yes, we write the virtual branch states into your git repository under refs/gitbutler/[branch] so you have them represented as real git references.
There is not a lot of new terminology. You commit to your branches, push them to GitHub, open PRs, track upstream work. It's really just that you can have more than one of them applied to the same working directory at the same time.
auto branch naming?
This is only done if you have the AI tools turned on and it's often just a placeholder. We basically want you to be able to use anonymous branches - not having to name them to start them. Think of it as a temporary description if you want, you can as easily rename them as name them in the first place. Also, I rather like them, they're often more descriptively correct than I would have done in the first place.
doesn't trust me more than the app
This isn't our goal. Our goal is to let you delegate things you don't want to do to us in some cases and make cool things a little simpler so that more people can utilize them. But you have to _opt in_ to the AI stuff, it's not the default. Otherwise they're just called "Virtual Branch 1", etc until you rename them.
Comments
Yes, we write the virtual branch states into your git repository under refs/gitbutler/[branch] so you have them represented as real git references.
There is not a lot of new terminology. You commit to your branches, push them to GitHub, open PRs, track upstream work. It's really just that you can have more than one of them applied to the same working directory at the same time.
This is only done if you have the AI tools turned on and it's often just a placeholder. We basically want you to be able to use anonymous branches - not having to name them to start them. Think of it as a temporary description if you want, you can as easily rename them as name them in the first place. Also, I rather like them, they're often more descriptively correct than I would have done in the first place.
This isn't our goal. Our goal is to let you delegate things you don't want to do to us in some cases and make cool things a little simpler so that more people can utilize them. But you have to _opt in_ to the AI stuff, it's not the default. Otherwise they're just called "Virtual Branch 1", etc until you rename them.