| name | write-commit |
| description | Shape git commits well - atomic one-concern commits, conventional-commit subjects, why-focused bodies, and a branch history that reads as a clear story. Use when composing commits. |
Commit shape and message discipline
This skill covers how to shape a commit. Whether you are allowed to commit at all is a separate matter set by the user's own configuration, not by this skill.
Treat committing as part of the deliverable. The next person to read git log should be able to reconstruct what you did and why without diffing the code.
- Atomic commits, one concern each. Split unrelated changes into separate commits, even when you made them in the same session. A follow-up refactor, a doc update, and a test addition are three commits, not one. If
git diff --stat HEAD would touch files from three separate concerns, plan three commits. Do not bundle "for tidiness": bundling destroys reviewability and the ability to bisect (find the commit that introduced a bug by binary search).
- Group by intent, not by file. A commit titled
"various fixes" or "address feedback" is almost always wrong: it means changes from several concerns were collapsed together. Title each commit after the one thing it does, and put unrelated work in a sibling commit.
- Subject plus body, not subject only. The subject says what changed in at most 72 characters, with a conventional-commit prefix (
feat:, fix:, refactor:, chore:, docs:, test:). The body explains why: the constraint that forced this shape, the previous behavior, the failure it prevents, the ADR / issue / review comment that motivated it. A trivial commit (a one-line typo) can skip the body; anything non-trivial needs one.
- Branch history reads as a clear story. Someone scrolling
git log --oneline <base>..HEAD should follow the work step by step, in the order it happened: foundational refactors land before the feature that needs them; tests ship in or right after the commit they cover; doc updates land with the code they describe, not in a trailing "docs" dump. If your branch ends with one 800-line commit titled "implement feature", reshape the history before pushing.
- Pre-commit check. Before each
git commit, ask: what single sentence sums up the diff I am about to commit, and would the next reader agree that sentence is faithful? If the answer needs an "and", split the commit.
- Hard mechanics. Never
--amend, never --no-verify, never force-push. If a pre-commit hook fails, fix the problem and make a new commit.
