Dw Git

dw-git — all git ops, by the project's own conventions

Every git operation in one place, so the conventions live in exactly one place: the rest of the loop delegates here by prose — the build step commits the way this skill does, the ship step pushes and opens PRs the way this skill does.

What it reads

Before any operation, look for a ## Git conventions block in AGENTS.md (repo root) first, then in a legacy CLAUDE.local.md. First one found wins, and its values override the defaults below — commit format, default branch, branch naming, trailer policy, PR title format, rebase-vs-merge, signing. With neither file, or neither carrying such a block, use the documented defaults.

CLAUDE.md is deliberately not in that list: where it exists it is a symlink to AGENTS.md, so reading it is reading the first entry twice. And AGENTS.md comes first because it is tracked — it reaches a fresh clone and a git worktree checkout, which is exactly where the old gitignored copy left this skill falling back to defaults the repo had already overridden.

Resolving the default branch is the one lookup every other skill borrows from here: take it from ## Git conventions, else git symbolic-ref --short refs/remotes/origin/HEAD, else main. Never assume main outright.

Which ref of it to diff against is the second half of that lookup, and every skill that reviews a diff borrows it too. Fetch, then take whichever of the two already contains the other:

git fetch origin --quiet 2>/dev/null || true
base=                                        # the default — see below
git rev-parse --verify --quiet origin/ >/dev/null \
  && git merge-base --is-ancestor  origin/ \
  && base=origin/                            # origin contains local, so it is ahead

Never prefer origin/ by reflex. It is wrong exactly when the local branch is ahead — the normal state while an unpushed chore: shape … commit sits on it: the merge-base reaches back past that commit, so the diff under review swallows work the branch didn't write. Only a local branch that has fallen behind earns the remote ref, and that is the one thing the check settles. Local is the default because the two cases it can't settle have no better answer: diverged, where neither contains the other — say so, and use local, since the branch was cut from it — and no origin at all. Keep the rev-parse guard: --is-ancestor exits 128 on a ref that doesn't exist, not 1, so a chain that falls through to origin/ on failure hands back a ref that won't resolve.

dw-git writes no .ai/ artifact — its durable output is the git history itself.

Operations

commit

Defaults (overridden by ## Git conventions):

• Subject shape and trailer are declared, not inferred: read the - **Commit pattern**: and

- **Commit trailer**: bullets under ## Solo lane. Those are what enforce-commit-hygiene.sh enforces, so a message ignoring them is refused before it reaches git — don't restate them here or guess at them from the log. With neither bullet the hook's own defaults apply: Conventional Commits and no trailer.

• What the pattern can't express, and you still owe: imperative mood, lowercase, no trailing period,

≤72 chars — plus a [TICKET-XXX] prefix when the branch matches ^[A-Z]+-\d+.

• Body: what + why for non-trivial changes; omit for trivial ones.
• NO "Generated with Claude Code" footer.
• One logical change per commit — split when session work spans concerns.

Workflow:

1. git status --short — see everything.
2. Classify: session work (created/edited this conversation) vs pre-existing /

unrelated. Stage session work by name (git add path1 path2); never git add . / git add -A — enforce-commit-hygiene.sh refuses both where installed, and where it isn't the rule stands anyway. Only the user can run one.

1. Exclude sensitive files (.env, credentials, keys) — warn, don't stage.
2. git diff --staged — review what's actually staged.
3. Ticket key from branch: git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD | grep -oE '^[A-Z]+-[0-9]+'.

If found, prefix [KEY] — but only if the declared - **Commit pattern**: admits it. A pattern anchored at ^(feat|fix|…) does not, and the hook will refuse every commit; that is a contradiction in the repo's own declarations, so say so rather than fighting it.

1. Commit — -m for the subject, repeat -m for the body (no heredoc needed for a

short body). Use plain git commit and follow the project's signing convention from ## Git conventions; don't add -S or run git config to change signing. Surface an error only if the commit genuinely fails.

• A backtick inside a double-quoted -m is command substitution, and it fails silently —

the phrase commits gone and the commit still succeeds. enforce-commit-hygiene.sh refuses it where installed; where it isn't, single-quote the message, escape the backticks, or put the message in a file and use -F.

• Read the message back with git cat-file -p HEAD — not git log, whose output a

token-filtering proxy or a pager may shorten, which makes a real truncation and a trimmed display indistinguishable in both directions.

1. git log --oneline -1 — confirm.

push

Defaults:

• Plain git push for feature branches.
• Force-push is blocked by block-dangerous-commands.sh when installed; otherwise

refuse it manually.

• Pushing to main / master / develop needs explicit confirmation first.

Workflow:

1. git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD. If it's a protected branch, confirm before pushing.
2. Upstream check: git rev-parse --abbrev-ref @{u} 2>/dev/null.
3. No upstream → git push -u origin "$(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD)"; else git push.
4. Report the result.

PR — "open PR", "create pull request"

Defaults:

• Title: same format as the commit subject.
• Body: summary + test plan derived from the commits since the base branch; no

attribution footer.

• Use .github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md as the body skeleton if it exists.
• Create via gh pr create — never the web UI, and gh over a GitHub MCP server:

less context, same result.

Workflow:

1. Push the branch first if it isn't pushed (see push).
2. Base branch: the default branch, resolved as above.
3. Build the body (PR template if present, else ## Summary bullets +

## Test plan checklist).

1. gh pr create --title "..." --body "..."; print the PR URL.

sync — "sync with main", "rebase"

Defaults: rebase, not merge. Refuse on a dirty tree — ask the user to commit or stash first.

git fetch origin
git rebase origin/

On conflicts: report them and stop — do not auto-resolve.

branch — "new branch", "switch branch"

Use git switch -c (not git checkout -b). Default name: the kebab slug of what the branch is for — the same spelling the change docs under .ai/work/ use. Prefix a ticket key only when the project's conventions carry one.

stash — "stash my work"

Always with a message: git stash push -m "". Never bare git stash.

Notes

• Every branch read is git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD, never git branch --show-current —

the latter prints an empty string on a detached HEAD, which silently turns a branch check into a no-match.

• Defaults assume block-dangerous-commands.sh is installed (via the scaffolder).

If it isn't, manually refuse the same patterns (force-push, hard-reset, clean -d/-f).

• Modern verbs throughout: git switch / git restore over git checkout.

Next: dw-next to get back to building.

$ARGUMENTS

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: dominikwozniak
• Source: dominikwozniak/dw-solo-skills
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.