Merge conflicts and uncoordinated parallel work on the same files

Pain point

Devs collide editing the same code area; standup is being used as a manual, verbal "who's touching what" lock. "git pull --your hair."

Signal

Moderate. ~8.5k upvotes; 1,137-upvote comment describes an explicit workflow hack (claiming code regions at standup) — that's a user describing a manual process begging for automation, the classic build signal.

Opportunity

IDE extension + GitHub app: detects when a teammate's open branch touches files you just opened, surfaces an inline "Alice is editing this function on branch X" warning, and posts a daily auto-generated "collision risk" summary to Slack replacing the standup ritual. Per-seat $6/mo. **Feasibility: medium** — needs branch-diff indexing and an editor plugin; defensible and clearly scoped.

Evidence

• aboutToBreakTheCode