Create a commit in a repository

Creating Git commits

The most common case will be creating a commit in a Git repository. Usually, you will include all changes in the working directory in the commit (that is, you should run git diff to see what the changes are, and/or git diff --staged to see what has already been staged). Generally, if your user wants you to commit only a subset of the changes in the working directory, he will instruct you to do so.

Creating Jujutsu commits

Less frequently, you will find yourself in a Jujutsu repository (which you can determine via the presence of a .jj directory in the repository root). Jujutsu does not have a concept of a staging area like Git, and running any jj command will cause a snapshot of the working directory (including untracked files) to be made; you should therefore interactively prompt your user to indicate which changed files should be included in the change. In the most common case, you can use jj st to see which files are in the current snapshot, and jj show to see the diff, then jj split <file>... to indicate which specific files to be included in the commit (passing your commit message using the -m option.

In general, because of the lack of staging area, you should be careful with any jj command that creates or modifies a change. For example, if you user asks you to squash some changes into the last commit using jj squash, you should prompt the user to indicate which files' changes they want squashed (and invoke jj squash <file>... accordingly).

For more information on Jujutsu, see the /jujutsu skill.

Common instructions

1. Run the appropriate Git-specific or Jujutsu-specific commands to see what should be included in the commit.
2. Note that your user may have asked you to create or update "plan" files under .claude-notes/, a directory which is ignored via the global ~/.config/git/ignore file: these plan files should never be included in a commit as they are intended to be local-only aids to development.
3. Create a commit message with:
   • A subject of 72 characters or less in Conventional Commits format (eg. "docs: add migration notes" or "fix: avoid double-render in list component"). In repositories that make use of scopes, you can include a scope in parentheses (eg. "chore(frontend): update copyright year" or "feat(login): add support for magic links").
   • A blank line.
   • A detailed description, wrapped to 72 characters, using basic Markdown syntax.
   • At the bottom, include the full text of all prompts that were used while preparing the changes that led to the commit; never omit any prompts.

Best practices

• Subjects MUST start with a Conventional Commits type (eg. "docs", "fix", "feat", "chore" etc; see the table below for a full list) followed by a statement beginning with a verb (eg. "add", "remove", "rename" etc). The subject describes what the commit does.
• The body should explain the motivation for the change, and why the solution was chosen.
• Note alternatives which were considered but not implemented.
• Include references to previous commits or other artifacts (documentation, PRs) that are relevant.

Conventional Commits types

Example

refactor: remove unused `recurse` setting

We were never exposing a user-accessible setting here. It is always `true`
in practice, except in the benchmarks where we offered an override via the
environment.

If there is ever a call for this in the future, we can resurrect it, but
for now, leaving it out presents us with an opportunity to simplify.
It may even be a tiny bit faster (1.3% better CPU time, and 2.4%
better wall time), with reasonable confidence, due to saving us some
conditional checks.

Agent prompts used in preparing this commit:

> Search the codebase and confirm that the `recurse` setting isn't used
> anywhere outside of the benchmarks, where it is hardcoded to `true`.
> Once you've confirmed that, remove all traces of the setting. Run the
> benchmarks to see they still work, and the tests to see they still pass.