finish-feature_skill

Overview

This skill completes and merges a feature branch following GitFlow conventions, ensuring tests pass, changelog entries are updated, and the merge is recorded with a conventional commit. It automates branch normalization, validation, testing, changelog updates, merging into the target integration branch, and optional branch deletion. The process enforces clean working trees and explicit co-authorship for changelog commits.

How this skill works

The skill inspects the current Git state: branch name, working tree cleanliness, staged/unstaged changes, and recent commits. It normalizes the provided feature name to a kebab-case feature/* branch, validates naming and cleanliness, and runs available test suites. If tests pass, it updates the Unreleased section of CHANGELOG.md using Keep a Changelog sections, commits the changelog with a conventional commit message and Co-Authored-By footer, identifies the integration branch (e.g., develop), merges with --no-ff, and optionally deletes the feature branch locally and remotely.

When to use it

• Finishing a feature developed on a feature/* branch following GitFlow.
• Before merging changes that require changelog documentation and test verification.
• When you want automated branch normalization and safe merging with conventional commits.
• When you need to ensure co-authored changelog entries are recorded and persisted.
• When you want to delete feature branches after a successful merge unless explicitly preserved.

Best practices

• Run this skill from a clean working tree with no unstaged changes or uncommitted work.
• Provide the feature name or branch exactly; the skill will strip leading feature/ and convert to kebab-case.
• Ensure test suites are present and reliably executable; review failures locally before retrying the finish operation.
• Review the generated CHANGELOG Unreleased entries for clarity and merge repetitive items before committing.
• If the feature branch is shared, indicate you want to keep it to avoid remote deletion.

Example use cases

• Finish and merge feature/smart-search into develop after tests pass and changelog updated.
• Normalize feature name inputs like 'feature/ImproveUI' or 'improve_ui' into feature/improve-ui and proceed to merge.
• Run the workflow to enforce changelog discipline when multiple contributors edited the same feature branch (Co-Authored-By added).
• Automate merges in CI where branches are ephemeral and should be deleted after successful integration.