plandex-ai/plandex · warning

Cannot delete main branch

Error message

Cannot delete main branch

What it means

DeleteBranchHandler explicitly rejects deletion of the 'main' branch, returning HTTP 400 'Cannot delete main branch'. This is a deliberate business-rule guard: main is the plan's primary branch and always kept. It is a static validation, not an unexpected failure.

Source

Thrown at app/server/handlers/branches.go:180

	auth := Authenticate(w, r, true)
	if auth == nil {
		return
	}

	vars := mux.Vars(r)
	planId := vars["planId"]
	branch := vars["branch"]

	log.Println("planId: ", planId)

	if authorizePlan(w, planId, auth) == nil {
		return
	}

	if branch == "main" {
		log.Println("Cannot delete main branch")
		http.Error(w, "Cannot delete main branch", http.StatusBadRequest)
		return
	}

	ctx, cancel := context.WithCancel(r.Context())

	err := db.ExecRepoOperation(db.ExecRepoOperationParams{
		OrgId:    auth.OrgId,
		UserId:   auth.User.Id,
		PlanId:   planId,
		Branch:   "main",
		Reason:   "delete branch",
		Scope:    db.LockScopeWrite,
		Ctx:      ctx,
		CancelFn: cancel,
	}, func(repo *db.GitRepo) error {
		err := repo.GitDeleteBranch(branch)
		return err
	})

View on GitHub (pinned to e2d772072e)

Solutions

1. Exclude 'main' from any bulk-delete loop before calling the delete endpoint
2. Fix the client to pass the intended non-main branch in the URL path
3. Treat this as an expected 400 in client code and skip main silently

Example fix

// before
for _, b := range branches {
    client.DeleteBranch(planId, b)
}
// after
for _, b := range branches {
    if b != "main" {
        client.DeleteBranch(planId, b)
    }
}

// client: never attempt to delete main
if branch == "main" {
    return errors.New("refusing to delete main branch")
}

func isDeletable(branch string) bool { return branch != "main" }

When it happens

Trigger: DELETE to the branch endpoint with branch path variable exactly equal to "main". No other condition produces this error.

Common situations: A client or script iterating all branches and deleting each without excluding main; a UI bug passing the wrong branch variable; manual API testing with main in the path.

Related errors

• Error parsing request body
• User is already a member of org
• Invite already exists
• Error parsing request body
• Error parsing request body

AI-assisted analysis of plandex-ai/plandex@e2d772072e (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/fd83abaf03516b44. Report an issue: GitHub.