The application relies on a pre-receive hook to block direct Git pushes to the master branch, ensuring all changes go through proper review channels. Previously, the system bypassed this restriction for authorized bridge merges by temporarily creating a file marker on the disk. This prone-to-failure file mechanism has been replaced with a cleaner GITCHAIN_BRIDGE_MERGE=1 environment variable passed during the git push invocation, resulting in faster and more reliable merges moving forward.