Filter flush_pending() to only git-commit for terminal stages (1_upcoming and 6_archived) while still broadcasting WatcherEvents for all stages so the frontend stays in sync. Reduces pipeline commits from 5+ to 2 per story run. No system dependencies on intermediate commits were found. Preserves merge_failure front matter cleanup from master. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>