Git Best Practices

What it does

This skill guides an AI agent through Git workflows with a focus on best practices for backend service and API development. It enforces rules around commit formatting (Conventional Commits), staging changes, and pushing updates to protect shared history. The skill also supports the creation of "WIP" checkpoint commits during long-running tasks and provides guidance on crafting clean, narrative-driven commit histories before opening pull requests.

When to use it

• When developing backend services or APIs where consistent Git practices are crucial.
• During complex development tasks requiring temporary checkpoints (WIP commits).
• Before branching, merging, or opening pull requests to ensure adherence to repository conventions.
• To enforce standardized commit message formatting and improve code review processes.

Key capabilities

• Branch Discovery: Identifies default, current, and optionally production branch names.
• Conventional Commits: Enforces a specific commit format: type(scope): description.
• Explicit Staging: Requires files to be added by name using git add path/to/file.
• Safe Force Pushing: Uses --force-with-lease for force pushes and requires user confirmation.
• WIP Checkpoint Commits: Allows creation of temporary commits during long tasks, cleaned up before PRs.
• Commit Message Guidelines: Provides rules and examples for subject lines and commit bodies.

Example prompts

• "Discover the default branch in this repository."
• "Stage these files: src/auth.ts and src/auth.test.ts."
• "Create a conventional commit with type 'feat' for updating user authentication."

Tips & gotchas

• The skill enforces strict rules regarding commit formatting and staging, so be prepared to follow the guidelines.
• User confirmation is required before any force push operations are performed.
• Review the git-examples.md file (referenced in the source) for detailed examples of conventional commit messages.