Purpose

Guide safe staging and committing of changes with consistent commit message formatting.

Commit Message Convention

Use this format:

code

<change_type>: short description

•Keep it concise - generally no body/description needed
•Use lowercase for the change type
•Common change types: the affected tool, config, or area (e.g., zsh, tmux, bin, readme, gitconfig, opencode)

Examples

code

zsh: update `gca` alias to include `no-edit` flag
chezmoi: add `.chezmoi.toml.tmpl` template for config init
tmux: swap default terminal to `xterm-256color` to fix colors
zsh: add `.local/bin` to PATH
tmux: explicitly set `default-shell`
i3: fix up status bar after moving bin folder
bin: make scripts executable
gitconfig: template out email config option
opencode: add /commit skill and command

Staging Safety

Before staging, check for files that should NEVER be committed:

•.env, .env.* (environment secrets) — except .env.example, .env.sample
•.envrc (direnv secrets)
•*.pem, *.key, *.p12 (private keys/certs)
•*id_rsa*, *id_ed25519* (SSH keys)
•credentials*, secrets*, *.kdbx (credential stores)
•*.pyc, __pycache__/, node_modules/, *.o, *.a (build artifacts)
•.DS_Store, Thumbs.db (OS junk)

If any such files appear in git status, warn the user and do NOT stage them. List them explicitly. If anything is of major concern, terminate IMMEDIATELY (including a message detailing why).

Workflow

•Run git status --porcelain=v1 -uall to see all changes
•Run git diff and git diff --staged to understand unstaged and staged changes
•Identify any "bad files" from the list above - warn and exclude them
•Stage safe files with git add <path> (prefer explicit paths over git add -A)
•Confirm staged set with git diff --staged --stat
•Draft or use provided commit message following the convention above
•Run git commit -m "<message>"
•Verify with git status

When to Use

Use this skill when committing changes to ensure:

•No secrets or sensitive files are accidentally committed
•Commit messages follow the project convention
•All relevant files are staged