git-workflow_skill

Overview

This skill provides practical Git workflow and version control best practices to keep team collaboration efficient and codebases stable. It covers branch strategies, commit message conventions, common workflows, rebasing, and conflict resolution principles. Use it to standardize Git usage across projects and reduce integration friction.

How this skill works

It inspects typical Git actions and guides you through branching, committing, updating, and merging steps with concrete commands and naming rules. It enforces Conventional Commits-style messages and recommends branch naming patterns for features, fixes, hotfixes, refactors, and docs. It also outlines safe rebase procedures and clear conflict-resolution steps to minimize mistakes and preserve history.

When to use it

• Starting a new feature or hotfix to create the correct branch and naming
• Writing commits to follow a clear Conventional Commits format
• Preparing a branch for merge by rebasing or updating from the integration branch
• Resolving merge conflicts while preserving correct logic and tests
• Establishing team-wide Git rules and onboarding new contributors

Best practices

• Keep main/master deployable; use develop (or similar) as the integration branch
• Use descriptive branch names like feature/123-short-desc or bugfix/45-short-desc
• Write commits in Conventional Commits format: type(scope): subject and include body/footer for details
• Rebase feature branches onto develop before merging to keep history linear and resolve conflicts early
• When resolving conflicts, understand both sides, preserve correct logic, test thoroughly, and communicate with authors
• Push rebased branches with git push --force-with-lease to avoid overwriting others' work

Example use cases

• Implementing a new user-auth feature: create feature/123-user-auth, commit with feat(auth):, rebase onto develop, open PR
• Fixing a production bug: branch hotfix/456-critical-fix, commit fix(scope):, test and merge to main then backport to develop
• Refactoring a module: use refactor/module-name branch, break changes into small commits, document intent in commit body
• Updating documentation: use docs/update-installation branch and commit with docs(scope):
• Merging a long-lived feature: frequently rebase onto develop, resolve conflicts with involved teammates, then open a clean PR