commit-pr

name	commit-pr
audience	swarm-plugin
description	Apply when committing, pushing, opening or updating a pull request, or closing out CI. A portable, project-agnostic commit and PR workflow: verify before you push, write conventional commits and a clear PR body, and never commit generated or secret files.
effort	medium

Commit & PR Protocol (portable)

A project-agnostic workflow for landing a change safely. It makes no assumptions about the language, build tool, or hosting provider — discover each project's own conventions and follow them. Do every step in order.

If the repository ships its own commit/PR contract (a CONTRIBUTING.md, a pull-request template, a contributor-guide file, or a project-specific commit-pr skill), that contract wins over this generic guidance. Read it first.

Step 0 — Working-tree hygiene

1. git status and git diff — know exactly what you are about to commit.
2. Confirm you are on a feature branch, not the default branch. If you are on main/master, create a branch first.
3. Do not stage generated output, dependency directories, local caches, or secrets (build/dist output, node_modules/target/vendor, .env, credentials, keys). If any are tracked or unignored, fix .gitignore instead of committing them.

Step 1 — Discover the project's checks

Find the project's own validation commands rather than guessing:

• A package manifest's script section (e.g. package.json scripts, Makefile targets, pyproject.toml, Cargo.toml, justfile, Taskfile).
• CI workflow files under .github/workflows/ (or the provider's config) — these are the checks that must pass to merge.

Run the project's build, test, lint, type-check, and format checks — whatever exists. Pin tool versions to what the project declares so local results match CI. If a check fails, fix the cause; do not weaken, skip, or delete the check.

Step 2 — Verify before you push

Run the discovered checks and confirm they pass. Report the exact commands and their results — never claim a check passed without having run it. Passing tests mean the change is plausible, not automatically correct: make sure the change actually does what the task intended.

Step 3 — Commit

Write a clear, conventional commit message:

• Title: <type>(<scope>): <summary> where <type> is one of feat, fix, perf, refactor, docs, test, build, ci, chore, revert.
• Keep the title short and imperative; put detail in the body.
• One logical change per commit where practical.

Step 4 — Push

1. Identify the correct remote. If the repo has several remotes, push to the one the PR targets (the upstream you are contributing to), not an unrelated fork.
2. git push -u <remote> <branch> for a new branch.
3. If a push is rejected because you rebased, use git push --force-with-lease — never a plain, unconditional force push. --force-with-lease refuses to overwrite commits the remote gained since your last fetch, so it cannot silently clobber a teammate's work.

Step 5 — Open or update the PR

Search the repo for a PR template (.github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md or .github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE/). If one exists, fill in its sections. Otherwise write a body with at least:

• Summary — what changed and why.
• Test plan — the checks you ran and their results.
• A linking keyword (Closes #<issue>) when the PR resolves an issue.

Use a PR title in the same conventional-commit form as your commit.

Before generating the PR body, check if .swarm/issue-reference.json exists. If it does and contains a number field, auto-populate Closes #<number> as the first line of the PR body. If the file does not exist, fall back to Closes #<issue-number>.

Step 6 — Close out CI

After the PR is open, watch its checks. If CI fails, read the logs, reproduce locally, fix the real cause, and push again. A PR is not done until its required checks are green and any review feedback is addressed. Do not merge over failing required checks or disable a check to go green.

If this session is running an issue trace (/swarm issue --trace), call record_issue_publication (issue number, PR number, canonical PR URL, HEAD sha) right after the PR is opened so the issue-trace workflow can reach its terminal published state — without it the trace stays at publication_handoff and is NOT considered resolved.