diff-conflict-mode

diff-conflict-mode: the conflict-resolution surface. Activates on buffers whose diff session carries conflict regions, and contributes the fugitive-style d2o/d3o/d2p/d3p/dB chords.

On this page

The minor mode for conflict resolution, separate from the two-way diffing surface of diff-mode. It activates on a buffer whose diff session actually carries conflict regions.

The chords

Vim-fugitive's three-way family, so the muscle memory carries over. Each acts on the conflict region under the cursor:

Chord	Action
`d2o`	Keep ours — the local side, the one already in the buffer
`d3o`	Keep theirs — take the other side into the local buffer
`d2p`	Put ours — push the local side into the ours buffer
`d3p`	Put theirs — push the local side into the theirs buffer
`dB`	Keep both — retain the two sides, conflict markers removed

d2o and d2p are degenerate on purpose: the local buffer already is "ours", so there is nothing to apply or push. They report that rather than doing nothing silently, so a mistyped d3o does not look like a mode that ignored you.

Which side is "ours"?

This inverts depending on how the conflict was created, and it is the single most confusing thing about resolving one:

In a merge, "ours" is the branch you are on and "theirs" is the branch being merged in. What everyone expects.
In a rebase, cherry-pick, revert or git am, git replays your work onto the other side. So "ours" is the upstream you are replaying onto, and "theirs" is your own commit. The names are backwards from the intuition.

The magit status headerline says which operation is in flight — MERGING, REBASING, CHERRY-PICKING, REVERTING, APPLYING — so you can tell which reading applies before you press d3o. The unmerged file labels ("added by us", "deleted by them") follow git's wording and therefore the same inversion.

Why it's separate from diff-mode

Resolving a conflict and diffing two files are different jobs that happen to share a rendering. Diffing is symmetric — two versions, and you move hunks between them. Conflict resolution is a decision per region with a fixed vocabulary (ours / theirs / both), against a three-way base.

Giving them separate modes means the conflict chords exist without appearing in every ordinary :diffthis, and the gutter can distinguish a conflict from a change without diff-mode growing a conditional.

What activates it

A diff session whose sign map contains conflict regions. In practice: a merge or rebase that left conflict markers in a file you then diff.

Walking the conflicts

]c and [c move to the next / previous hunk and wrap at the end. In a conflict session those hunks are the conflict regions, so the pair walks you conflict-to-conflict — land on one, resolve it with d3o / dB, ]c to the next.

They come from diff-mode rather than this mode, because moving between regions is the same motion whether the region is a conflict or an ordinary change.

Not implemented yet

A dedicated conflict gutter. Conflict regions carry the diff sign map's conflict kind, but there is no separate marker column distinguishing a conflict from a change at a glance.