Conventional Commits

Default commit format: Conventional Commits. Use this format for all commits and PR/MR titles unless the project defines its own commit conventions (in CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, contributing guides, or similar). Project-specific rules always take priority.

When to Use

• Making any git commit -- this skill defines the required format
• Creating PR/MR titles -- squash merges use the title as the commit message
• Writing squash merge messages -- must follow the same format
• Reviewing commit message format -- validate against these rules

Critical Rules

1. Project rules override this skill -- if the project defines commit message conventions (issue number prefixes, custom formats, etc.), follow those instead. This skill is the default when no project-specific rules exist.
2. Type is required -- never commit without a type prefix
3. Description is lowercase, imperative mood, no period: fix: handle null response not Fix: Handled null response.
4. No Co-Authored-By trailer -- never add it to commit messages

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Provider Detection

Detect the git provider to use the correct CLI:

git remote get-url origin

Remote URL contains	Provider	CLI	PR term
github.com	GitHub	gh	PR
gitlab.com or self-hosted GitLab	GitLab	glab	MR

If ambiguous or both present, ask the user.

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Format

<type>(<optional scope>): <description>

[optional body]

[optional footer(s)]

Types

Type	When
feat	New feature or capability
fix	Bug fix
docs	Documentation only
style	Formatting, whitespace, semicolons (no logic change)
refactor	Code change that neither fixes a bug nor adds a feature
perf	Performance improvement
test	Adding or updating tests
build	Build system or external dependencies
ci	CI/CD configuration
chore	Maintenance tasks, tooling, config

Rules

1. Type is required -- never commit without a type prefix
2. Scope is optional but encouraged for multi-module repos: feat(auth): add OAuth2 flow
3. Description is lowercase, imperative mood, no period: fix: handle null response not Fix: Handled null response.
4. Breaking changes use ! after type/scope: feat(api)!: remove v1 endpoints
5. PR/MR titles follow the same format -- squash merges use the PR/MR title as the commit message
6. No Co-Authored-By trailer -- never add it to commit messages

Commit Examples

git commit -m "feat: add user profile page"
git commit -m "fix(auth): prevent token refresh race condition"
git commit -m "docs: update API reference for v2 endpoints"
git commit -m "refactor(db): extract connection pooling logic"
git commit -m "feat(api)!: change response format for /users"

PR/MR Title Examples

Provider	Create PR/MR with title
GitHub	gh pr create --title "feat: add dark mode" --body "..."
GitLab	glab mr create --title "feat: add dark mode" --description "..."