Untracked files that look like the user's work
Cleaning up a stale local branch before switching to main, in a repo where several untracked paths sat in the working tree.
When git status shows untracked files that block a branch switch, do not assume they are the user's in-progress work — they may be on-disk leftovers from an earlier checkout of a branch that has since been merged. Verify by diffing each path against the target branch (git show <branch>:<path> | diff -); identical or trivially-different content (e.g. while(true) → for(;;) from a lint autofix) means it is just stale. The harness will (rightly) refuse blanket deletion of pre-existing untracked files, so name each path explicitly and explain the verification.
Before any cleanup, run git ls-tree <target-branch> -- <path> and a diff against the target branch for each untracked path — that single check distinguishes stale leftovers from real local work.