tpw-git-workflow

name	tpw-git-workflow
description	Git commit/push discipline specific to Target Pathogen Web — fetch-and-compare before committing, exact-filename staging (never git add -A), commit message format, and push behavior. Load before committing or pushing changes in this repo.

Target Pathogen Web — git workflow

Before every commit

Run git fetch origin <branch> and compare HEAD against origin/<branch> in both directions (git log --oneline HEAD..origin/<branch> and git log --oneline origin/<branch>..HEAD) to confirm there's no divergence before proceeding. Don't skip this even for a small change — it's cheap and catches a stale local branch before it turns into a conflicted push.

Stage explicitly, never broadly

Stage only the specific files intentionally changed, by exact name (git add path/to/file.py path/to/other.css). Never git add -A or git add . in this repo. The user routinely keeps personal, in-progress working documents sitting modified or untracked in the working tree — observed examples: docs/TARGET_ROADMAP.md, docs/TARGET_FUNCTIONAL_REPORT.md. These must never be swept into a commit unless the user explicitly asked for that specific file to be included. Run git status --short after staging to confirm only the intended files are staged.

In practice docs/TARGET_ROADMAP.md gets updated and committed often — the rule above is about never including it by accident via broad staging, not about avoiding it. When a code change completes or corrects a roadmap item (or the user directly asks to update the roadmap), edit and stage it explicitly by name like any other intentionally-changed file.

Commit message

Concise, explains why the change was made, not just what changed. Do not add a Co-Authored-By: Claude trailer — the user asked for commits in this repo to not carry that line. Pass the message via a heredoc, per standard git-commit discipline.

Push behavior

Push after committing without re-asking each time — this has been the established convention for this repo/session. This does not extend to force-pushing or amending a commit that's already been pushed — those remain "ask first" actions regardless of this convention, per the general git-safety rules (never skip hooks, never force-push without explicit request, never amend published history).