I also recommend including the branch name in your shell prompt. For bash, I
have in my `.bashrc`:
PS1='\u@\h:\w$(__git_ps1 " [%s]")\$ '
Run
Depending on your distribution, you may need to install a package or source
some shell script to the `__git_ps1` command. For example, I need
source /usr/share/git-core/contrib/completion/git-prompt.sh
Run
in my `.bashrc`.
If you have this set up, the branch name would change from `devel` to something
like `devel|MERGE` in the prompt. That way you can see if Git put you in the
"merge mode" without even checking `git status`.
