gen-commit-msg_skill

Overview

This skill generates concise, professional git commit messages using conversation context first and minimal git inspection as a fallback. It prioritizes brevity, imperative mood, and message templates to produce summaries under 50 characters with an optional short body. The skill presents the proposed message and asks for confirmation before committing.

How this skill works

The skill inspects the conversation for recent file edits or explicit descriptions of changes and uses that context to craft a message. If no context is available, it runs lightweight git commands (git diff --cached, git status --short, git diff --stat) to identify staged or unstaged changes and derive an appropriate commit message. It then formats the message with a type prefix, brief summary, optional body, and prompts the user to confirm before running git commit.

When to use it

• After implementing changes discussed in the conversation
• When you want a short, accurate commit message without hand-writing it
• Before committing staged changes to ensure message quality
• When you need a standard type prefix (feat, fix, docs, etc.)
• When you want a commit message that reflects the outcome, not implementation details

Best practices

• Prefer conversation context over running git diff for speed and accuracy
• Keep the summary <=50 characters and body <=3 lines
• Use imperative mood and start with a type prefix (feat, fix, refactor, etc.)
• Describe what changed and why, not the implementation details
• Always confirm the proposed message before committing

Example use cases

• User and assistant edited a file in the chat: generate a commit message from that context and commit
• No prior conversation: run git diff --cached to analyze staged changes and propose a message
• User says “commit the bulk API newline fix”: generate a focused fix: summary + one-line body and commit after confirmation
• Quickly produce conventional commit-style messages for documentation, tests, style, or CI changes
• Suggest tag names consistent with existing tag format when user requests creating a tag