Idea Summary
When exporting a working copy even if that working copy has no change compared to the base of the application there are a lot of changes. This is even true when exporting using (in sqlcl):

apex export -applicationid 106 -skipexportdate -exporiginalids -split

See the diff between the primary export (where the application was 2000) and the working copy (106) attached.

It would be great if I could export the working copy “as if it was the original app”. That way I could easily separate this into a separate git branch and then merge it to my QAT branch/environment.

Just an extract of the diff after extracting f106 into the f2000 folder:

Use Case
Build a CI/CD process where multiple developers are developing different features on the DEV environment in separate working copies. When they're done they could export the working copy into git instead of merging the working copy into the main app and then exporting the main app (having potentially other changes from other devs in their branch).

Preferred Solution (Optional)
add a parameter to the export “expAsBaseApp” or so