The protected-branch auto-transfer path used \, which can trip \ when \ exits after finding the matching stash message. That leaves the stash ref lookup fragile during \.

Use a helper that reads the stash list once and resolves the matching ref without a pipeline, then mirror it across the installed, template, and frontend copies. Add focused regression coverage for the installed script path.

Constraint: Shipped branch-start script copies must stay behavior-identical across installed, template, and frontend surfaces
Rejected: Disable pipefail for the stash lookup | would hide real bootstrap failures on protected branches
Confidence: high
Scope-risk: narrow
Reversibility: clean
Directive: Keep stash-ref lookup shared and pipeline-free across all branch-start copies
Tested: node --test test/branch.test.js; git diff --check
Not-tested: Full gx branch finish/PR flow against GitHub