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SKILL.md
npx skills add addyosmani/agent-skills --skill git-workflow-and-versioning
Structures git workflow practices. Use when making any code change. Use when committing, branching, resolving conflicts, splitting uncommitted work in a messy working tree into clean atomic commits, opening or reviewing a pull request (PR), pushing to a remote, or when you need to organize work across multiple parallel streams. Use when cutting a release, choosing a semantic version bump, tagging, or writing a changelog.
npx skills add addyosmani/agent-skills --skill git-workflow-and-versioning
Git is your safety net. Treat commits as save points, branches as sandboxes, and history as documentation. With AI agents generating code at high speed, disciplined version control is the mechanism that keeps changes manageable, reviewable, and reversible.
Always. Every code change flows through git.
Keep main always deployable. Work in short-lived feature branches that merge back within 1-3 days. Long-lived development branches are hidden costs — they diverge, create merge conflicts, and delay integration. DORA research consistently shows trunk-based development correlates with high-performing engineering teams.
This is the recommended default. Teams using gitflow or long-lived branches can adapt the principles (atomic commits, small changes, descriptive messages) to their branching model — the commit discipline matters more than the specific branching strategy.
Each successful increment gets its own commit. Don't accumulate large uncommitted changes.
Commits are save points. If the next change breaks something, you can revert to the last known-good state instantly.
Each commit does one logical thing:
Commit messages explain the why, not just the what:
Format:
Types:
feat — New featurefix — Bug fixrefactor — Code change that neither fixes a bug nor adds a featuretest — Adding or updating testsdocs — Documentation onlychore — Tooling, dependencies, configDon't combine formatting changes with behavior changes. Don't combine refactors with features. Each type of change should be a separate commit — and ideally a separate PR:
Separate refactoring from feature work. A refactoring change and a feature change are two different changes — submit them separately. This makes each change easier to review, revert, and understand in history. Small cleanups (renaming a variable) can be included in a feature commit at reviewer discretion.
Target ~100 lines per commit/PR. Changes over ~1000 lines should be split. See the splitting strategies in code-review-and-quality for how to break down large changes.
main (or the team's default branch)For parallel AI agent work, use git worktrees to run multiple branches simultaneously:
Benefits:
This pattern means you never lose more than one increment of work. If an agent goes off the rails, git reset --hard HEAD takes you back to the last successful state.
After any modification, provide a structured summary. This makes review easier, documents scope discipline, and surfaces unintended changes:
This pattern catches wrong assumptions early and gives reviewers a clear map of the change. The "DIDN'T TOUCH" section is especially important — it shows you exercised scope discipline and didn't go on an unsolicited renovation.
Before every commit:
Automate this with git hooks:
package-lock.json, Prisma migrations)dist/, .next/), environment files (.env), or IDE config (.vscode/settings.json unless shared).gitignore that covers: node_modules/, dist/, .env, .env.local, *.pemCommits are how you track change; a version is how your consumers track it. The moment anything else depends on your code — another team, a published package, a deployed client — "latest on main" stops being a sufficient answer to "what am I running, and is it safe to upgrade?" A version number and a changelog are the contract that answers it.
For anything with consumers, version MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH and let the number carry meaning:
The number is a promise, so make the code match it. A "patch" that changes behavior consumers relied on is a major change wearing a disguise (Hyrum's Law — see the api-and-interface-design skill). When unsure whether a change is breaking, assume it is; a surprise major is far cheaper than a broken consumer.
A release is an immutable point in history, not a moving branch. Tag it so it can always be reproduced:
Derive the version from the tag rather than hand-editing it in scattered files, so the artifact, the tag, and the changelog can never disagree.
A changelog is not git log. It's the curated, consumer-facing answer to "what changed and do I care?" — grouped by Added / Changed / Fixed / Deprecated / Removed / Security, newest on top, every entry phrased around user impact, not internal mechanics.
Write the entry in the same change that makes the change, while the impact is fresh — not reconstructed from commit archaeology at release time. Breaking changes get a migration note and a deprecation window (follow the deprecation-and-migration skill); shipping the actual release is the shipping-and-launch skill's job — this section is the versioning contract that feeds it.
| Rationalization | Reality |
|---|---|
| "I'll commit when the feature is done" | One giant commit is impossible to review, debug, or revert. Commit each slice. |
| "The message doesn't matter" | Messages are documentation. Future you (and future agents) will need to understand what changed and why. |
| "I'll squash it all later" | Squashing destroys the development narrative. Prefer clean incremental commits from the start. |
| "Branches add overhead" | Short-lived branches are free and prevent conflicting work from colliding. Long-lived branches are the problem — merge within 1-3 days. |
| "I'll split this change later" | Large changes are harder to review, riskier to deploy, and harder to revert. Split before submitting, not after. |
| "I don't need a .gitignore" | Until .env with production secrets gets committed. Set it up immediately. |
| "It's just a small fix, bump the patch" | Check what consumers can observe. A behavior change they relied on is a major, whatever the diff size. |
| "The changelog is just the commit log" | Commits are for you; the changelog is for consumers, curated by impact. Generating one from raw commits buries what matters. |
| "We'll write the changelog at release time" | By then the impact is reconstructed from memory and half of it is missing. Write the entry with the change. |
.gitignore in the projectnode_modules/, .env, or build artifactsFor every commit:
.gitignore covers standard exclusionsFor every release (anything with consumers):
# Good: Explains intent
feat: add email validation to registration endpoint
Prevents invalid email formats from reaching the database.
Uses Zod schema validation at the route handler level,
consistent with existing validation patterns in auth.ts.
# Bad: Describes what's obvious from the diff
update auth.ts<type>: <short description>
<optional body explaining why, not what># Good: Separate concerns
git commit -m "refactor: extract validation logic to shared utility"
git commit -m "feat: add phone number validation to registration"
# Bad: Mixed concerns
git commit -m "refactor validation and add phone number field"~100 lines → Easy to review, easy to revert
~300 lines → Acceptable for a single logical change
~1000 lines → Split into smaller changesmain (always deployable)
│
├── feature/task-creation ← One feature per branch
├── feature/user-settings ← Parallel work
└── fix/duplicate-tasks ← Bug fixesfeature/<short-description> → feature/task-creation
fix/<short-description> → fix/duplicate-tasks
chore/<short-description> → chore/update-deps
refactor/<short-description> → refactor/auth-module# Create a worktree for a feature branch
git worktree add ../project-feature-a feature/task-creation
git worktree add ../project-feature-b feature/user-settings
# Each worktree is a separate directory with its own branch
# Agents can work in parallel without interfering
ls ../
project/ ← main branch
project-feature-a/ ← task-creation branch
project-feature-b/ ← user-settings branch
# When done, merge and clean up
git worktree remove ../project-feature-aAgent starts work
│
├── Makes a change
│ ├── Test passes? → Commit → Continue
│ └── Test fails? → Revert to last commit → Investigate
│
├── Makes another change
│ ├── Test passes? → Commit → Continue
│ └── Test fails? → Revert to last commit → Investigate
│
└── Feature complete → All commits form a clean historyCHANGES MADE:
- src/routes/tasks.ts: Added validation middleware to POST endpoint
- src/lib/validation.ts: Added TaskCreateSchema using Zod
THINGS I DIDN'T TOUCH (intentionally):
- src/routes/auth.ts: Has similar validation gap but out of scope
- src/middleware/error.ts: Error format could be improved (separate task)
POTENTIAL CONCERNS:
- The Zod schema is strict — rejects extra fields. Confirm this is desired.
- Added zod as a dependency (72KB gzipped) — already in package.json# 1. Check what you're about to commit
git diff --staged
# 2. Ensure no secrets
git diff --staged | grep -i "password\|secret\|api_key\|token"
# 3. Run tests
npm test
# 4. Run linting
npm run lint
# 5. Run type checking
npx tsc --noEmit// package.json (using lint-staged + husky)
{
"lint-staged": {
"*.{ts,tsx}": ["eslint --fix", "prettier --write"],
"*.{json,md}": ["prettier --write"]
}
}# Find which commit introduced a bug
git bisect start
git bisect bad HEAD
git bisect good <known-good-commit>
# Git checkouts midpoints; run your test at each to narrow down
# View what changed recently
git log --oneline -20
git diff HEAD~5..HEAD -- src/
# Find who last changed a specific line
git blame src/services/task.ts
# Search commit messages for a keyword
git log --grep="validation" --oneline MAJOR breaking change — consumers must change their code to upgrade
MINOR new functionality, backward-compatible — safe to upgrade
PATCH bug fix, backward-compatible — safe to upgradegit tag -a v1.4.0 -m "Release 1.4.0"
git push origin v1.4.0## [1.4.0] - 2025-06-12
### Added
- Bulk task import via CSV
### Fixed
- Timezone drift in recurring task due dates
### Deprecated
- `GET /v1/tasks/all` — use the paginated `GET /v1/tasks` (removal in 2.0)