author-contributions

When asked to find all files a specific author contributed to on a branch (compared to main or another upstream), follow this procedure. The goal is to produce a simple table that both humans and LLMs can consume.

Run as a Subagent

This skill involves many sequential git commands. Delegate it to a subagent with a prompt like:

Find every file that author "Full Name" contributed to on branch <branch> compared to <upstream>. Trace contributions through file renames. Return a markdown table with columns: Status (DIRECT or VIA_RENAME), File Path, and Lines (+/-). Include a summary line at the end.

Procedure

1. Identify the author's exact git identity

git log --format="%an <%ae>" <upstream>..<branch> | sort -u

Match the requested person to their exact --author= string. Do not guess — short usernames won't match full display names (resolve via git log or the GitHub MCP get_me tool).

2. Collect all files the author directly committed to

For each commit hash, extract touched files:

Union all results into a set (author_files).

3. Build rename map across the entire branch

For every commit on the branch (not just the author's), extract renames:

Parse lines with R status to build a map: new_path → {old_paths}.

4. Get the merge diff file list

These are the files that will actually land when the branch merges.

5. Classify each file in the merge diff

For each file in step 4:

If it's in author_files → DIRECT
Else, walk the rename map transitively (follow chains: current → old → older) and check if any ancestor is in author_files → VIA_RENAME
Otherwise → not this author's contribution

6. Get diff stats

7. Return the table

Format the result as a markdown table:

Important Notes

Use Python for the heavy lifting. Shell loops with inline comments break in zsh. Write a temp .py script, run it, then delete it.
Author matching is exact. Always run step 1 first. --author does substring matching but you must verify the right person is matched (e.g., don't match "Joshua Smith" when looking for "Josh S."). Use the GitHub MCP get_me tool or git log output to resolve the correct full name.
Renames can be multi-hop. A file may have moved contrib/chat/ → agentSessions/ → sessions/. The rename map must be walked transitively.
Only report files in the merge diff (step 4). Files the author touched that were later deleted entirely should not appear — they won't land in the upstream.
The rename map must include all authors' commits, not just the target author's. Other people often do the rename commits (e.g., bulk refactors/moves).

Example Python Script

Alternative Script

After following the process above, run this script to cross-check files touched by an author against the branch diff. You can do this both with an without src/vs/sessions.

Run as a Subagent

This skill involves many sequential git commands. Delegate it to a subagent with a prompt like:

Find every file that author "Full Name" contributed to on branch <branch> compared to <upstream>. Trace contributions through file renames. Return a markdown table with columns: Status (DIRECT or VIA_RENAME), File Path, and Lines (+/-). Include a summary line at the end.

Procedure

1. Identify the author's exact git identity

git log --format="%an <%ae>" <upstream>..<branch> | sort -u

Match the requested person to their exact --author= string. Do not guess — short usernames won't match full display names (resolve via git log or the GitHub MCP get_me tool).

2. Collect all files the author directly committed to

For each commit hash, extract touched files:

Union all results into a set (author_files).

3. Build rename map across the entire branch

For every commit on the branch (not just the author's), extract renames:

Parse lines with R status to build a map: new_path → {old_paths}.

4. Get the merge diff file list

These are the files that will actually land when the branch merges.

5. Classify each file in the merge diff

For each file in step 4:

If it's in author_files → DIRECT
Else, walk the rename map transitively (follow chains: current → old → older) and check if any ancestor is in author_files → VIA_RENAME
Otherwise → not this author's contribution

6. Get diff stats

7. Return the table

Format the result as a markdown table:

Important Notes

Use Python for the heavy lifting. Shell loops with inline comments break in zsh. Write a temp .py script, run it, then delete it.
Author matching is exact. Always run step 1 first. --author does substring matching but you must verify the right person is matched (e.g., don't match "Joshua Smith" when looking for "Josh S."). Use the GitHub MCP get_me tool or git log output to resolve the correct full name.
Renames can be multi-hop. A file may have moved contrib/chat/ → agentSessions/ → sessions/. The rename map must be walked transitively.
Only report files in the merge diff (step 4). Files the author touched that were later deleted entirely should not appear — they won't land in the upstream.
The rename map must include all authors' commits, not just the target author's. Other people often do the rename commits (e.g., bulk refactors/moves).

Example Python Script

Alternative Script

After following the process above, run this script to cross-check files touched by an author against the branch diff. You can do this both with an without src/vs/sessions.

import subprocess, os os.chdir('<repo_root>') UPSTREAM = 'main' AUTHOR = '<Author Name>' # Resolve via `git log` or GitHub MCP `get_me` # Step 2: author's files commits = subprocess.check_output( ['git', 'log', f'--author={AUTHOR}', '--format=%H', f'{UPSTREAM}..HEAD'], text=True).strip().split('\n') author_files = set() for h in (c for c in commits if c): files = subprocess.check_output( ['git', 'diff-tree', '--no-commit-id', '--name-only', '-r', h], text=True).strip().split('\n') author_files.update(f for f in files if f) # Step 3: rename map from ALL commits all_commits = subprocess.check_output( ['git', 'log', '--format=%H', f'{UPSTREAM}..HEAD'], text=True).strip().split('\n') rename_map = {} # new_name -> set(old_names) for h in (c for c in all_commits if c): out = subprocess.check_output( ['git', 'diff-tree', '--no-commit-id', '-r', '-M', h], text=True, timeout=5).strip() for line in out.split('\n'): if not line: continue parts = line.split('\t') if len(parts) >= 3 and 'R' in parts[0]: rename_map.setdefault(parts[2], set()).add(parts[1]) # Step 4: merge diff diff_files = subprocess.check_output( ['git', 'diff', '--name-only', f'{UPSTREAM}..HEAD'], text=True).strip().split('\n') # Step 5: classify results = [] for f in (x for x in diff_files if x): if f in author_files: results.append(('DIRECT', f)) else: # walk rename chain chain, to_check = set(), [f] while to_check: cur = to_check.pop() if cur in chain: continue chain.add(cur) to_check.extend(rename_map.get(cur, [])) chain.discard(f) if chain & author_files: results.append(('VIA_RENAME', f)) # Step 6: stats if results: stat = subprocess.check_output( ['git', 'diff', '--stat', f'{UPSTREAM}..HEAD', '--'] + [f for _, f in results], text=True) print(stat) # Step 7: table for kind, f in sorted(results, key=lambda x: x[1]): print(f'| {kind:12s} | {f} |') print(f'\nTotal: {len(results)} files')

Documentation

Documentation

Run as a Subagent

Procedure

1. Identify the author's exact git identity

2. Collect all files the author directly committed to

3. Build rename map across the entire branch

4. Get the merge diff file list

5. Classify each file in the merge diff

6. Get diff stats

7. Return the table

Important Notes

Example Python Script

Alternative Script

Documentation

author-contributions

Documentation

Run as a Subagent

Procedure

1. Identify the author's exact git identity

2. Collect all files the author directly committed to

3. Build rename map across the entire branch

4. Get the merge diff file list

5. Classify each file in the merge diff

6. Get diff stats

7. Return the table

Important Notes

Example Python Script

Alternative Script