Git Commit

Collaborating skills

• Create PR: skill: create-pr for creating pull requests after committing changes
• Refactor: skill: refactor for commit messages during refactoring sessions

Overview

Generate concise, descriptive git commit messages based on staged code changes. Analyzes staged changes and recent commit history to craft well-structured messages following best practices.

When work is ready for review, use the create-pr skill to create a pull request.

Commit Message Format

<Subject>

<Description>

Do not add Co-Authored-By unless explicitly instructed by the user.

Best Practices

1. Capitalization and Punctuation

• Capitalize the first word of the subject line
• Do NOT end the subject line with punctuation

2. Imperative Mood

Use imperative mood in the subject line—give the tone of giving an order or request.

Good:

• Add fix for dark mode toggle state
• Update API authentication flow
• Remove deprecated database fields

Bad:

• Added fix for dark mode toggle state
• Updating API authentication flow
• Removing deprecated database fields

3. Length Limits

• Subject line: Maximum 50 characters
• Body lines: Maximum 72 characters

4. Content Style

Be direct and concise. Eliminate filler words and phrases such as:

• "though"
• "maybe"
• "I think"
• "kind of"
• "just"
• "simply"

Think like a journalist—state what was done clearly and directly.

Analysis Framework

To craft thoughtful commit messages, consider:

1. Why were these changes made?
2. What effect do the changes have?
3. Why was the change needed?
4. What are the changes in reference to (issue numbers, PRs, tickets)?

Examples

Simple bug fix:

Fix authentication timeout

Increase session timeout from 30 to 60 minutes to prevent
frequent re-authentication for active users.

Fixes #123

Feature addition:

Add dark mode support

Implement system-wide dark mode using CSS custom properties.
Users can toggle between light and dark themes via new
settings menu option.

Refs #456

Refactoring:

Extract payment processing module

Move payment-related logic into dedicated module to improve
testability and reduce controller complexity.

Breaking change:

Remove deprecated user endpoints

Delete /users/legacy endpoints which were marked for removal
in v2.0. Clients must use /v2/users endpoints instead.

BREAKING CHANGE: Migrate to v2 endpoints before upgrading

Workflow

1. Run git status to see staged changes
2. Run git diff --staged to review the actual changes
3. Run git log -5 --oneline to understand recent commit message style
4. Analyze changes to understand the "why" and "what"
5. Draft the commit message following the format and practices above
6. Verify: subject under 50 chars, imperative mood, no trailing punctuation