Commit

Planner Entry

Stage and commit changes in the primary conversation after the task-defined implementation checks pass. Do not add broad post-commit /verify before push by default. Preserve the hook receipt as normal commit evidence.

Create a git commit following this project's Conventional Commits convention. These messages are used by git-cliff (cliff.toml) to auto-generate changelogs and release notes. PRs are squash-merged, so the PR title becomes the commit on main — CI validates it via pr-title.yml.

Available skills

• /pr-fixup — Use after the PR opens only for CI or actionable reviewer findings.

Format

type: lowercase description

Allowed Types

Type	Use for	In changelog?
feat	New features	Yes (Features)
fix	Bug fixes	Yes (Bug Fixes)
perf	Performance improvements	Yes (Performance)
refactor	Code refactoring	Yes (Refactoring)
docs	Documentation changes	Yes (Documentation)
chore	Maintenance, deps, configs	No
ci	CI/CD changes	No
test	Test-only changes	No

Rules

• Subject must start with a lowercase letter
• Scope is optional: feat(ui): add dialog is valid
• Include PR/issue number when relevant: feat: add release notes (#295)
• Breaking changes: add ! after type: feat!: remove legacy API
• Keep the first line under 72 characters
• Body lines must be ≤100 characters (commitlint body-max-line-length). Hard-wrap bullet points before committing; long URLs or prose lines that exceed 100 chars will fail the hook with body's lines must not be longer than 100 characters. If a HEREDOC body fails, re-wrap and create a new commit — do not amend.

Examples

feat: add release notes dialog
fix: flaky test in orchestrator (#292)
refactor: extract session handler into separate module
chore: update dependencies
ci: add PR title linting workflow

Steps

Track these steps with an internal todo/checklist and mark them complete as you go. Do not create, update, or delete Kandev subtasks for this workflow unless the user explicitly requests task tracking.

1. Understand changes: Run git status and git diff to understand all changes. Review recent commits with git log --oneline -10 to match project style.

2. Ensure pre-commit hooks are wired up. This must work in worktrees too, where .git/ is a file (not a directory) and the real hooks path is shared with the main repo via core.hooksPath. Use git rev-parse --git-path so the check resolves correctly regardless:

   # Is the framework on PATH?
   pre-commit --version >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo "INSTALLED" || echo "NOT_INSTALLED"
   
   # Is the hook actually wired into git's hook system?
   PRE_COMMIT_HOOK_PATH=$(git rev-parse --git-path hooks/pre-commit)
   COMMIT_MSG_HOOK_PATH=$(git rev-parse --git-path hooks/commit-msg)
   test -f "$PRE_COMMIT_HOOK_PATH" && grep -q "pre-commit" "$PRE_COMMIT_HOOK_PATH" \
     && test -f "$COMMIT_MSG_HOOK_PATH" && grep -q "pre-commit" "$COMMIT_MSG_HOOK_PATH" \
     && echo "ACTIVE" || echo "INACTIVE"
   

   • If NOT_INSTALLED, tell the user once: "⚠️ pre-commit is not on PATH. Install it with pip install pre-commit so format/lint runs on every commit." Then continue (don't block).

   • If installed but INACTIVE, install it yourself — the project ships .pre-commit-config.yaml and make doctor is a no-op-on-already-installed wrapper around the same command:

     pre-commit install -t pre-commit -t commit-msg --overwrite
     

     Mention that you wired it up. Subsequent commits will run hooks automatically.

   • If both checks pass, no output needed.

   • Before the first commit, ensure the worktree can run the commit-msg dependency. If apps/node_modules/.bin/commitlint is absent, install it from apps/ before committing:

     cd apps && pnpm install --frozen-lockfile
     

     Retry the normal commit after the install; never bypass the hook.

   • After merging or rebasing the base branch, if apps/package.json or apps/pnpm-lock.yaml changed and a hook reports ERR_MODULE_NOT_FOUND even though apps/node_modules/.bin/commitlint exists, refresh the workspace dependencies from apps/:

     cd apps && pnpm install --frozen-lockfile
     

     Retry the normal commit without bypassing hooks.

   Why this matters: a missing hook lets lint regressions slip past local commits and only surface in CI (e.g. funlen / cognitive complexity on backend Go code). The hook catches them in <1s at commit time. See Makefile's doctor target for the idempotent install command.

3. Capture the parent SHA and preserve hook evidence:

   git rev-parse HEAD
   

   Never use --no-verify, SKIP, or another hook-bypass option or environment variable. A bypassed commit is allowed only when the user explicitly requests it, and its receipt must say bypass: true; it never qualifies as a successful hook receipt.

4. Stage files: Stage relevant files (prefer specific files over git add -A). Before reviewing or committing, inspect every ?? path from git status --short; git diff omits untracked files. Stage each relevant path or read it explicitly so new tests and helpers are not missed.

   • Splitting commits with new files: When introducing a brand-new file alongside the file that uses it, stage them together. The Go lint pre-commit hook stashes unstaged changes before linting but keeps untracked files in the working tree — so a new helper committed alone, while its (still-unstaged) caller sits in the working tree, lints as unused and rejects the commit.

5. Commit: Write a commit message following the format above. If changes span multiple concerns, consider separate commits. When MERGE_HEAD exists or a merge commit is being completed, use git commit --no-edit so a non-interactive runner does not open an editor; normal hooks still run. Confirm the merge commit exists and MERGE_HEAD is gone before reporting success. If a formatter changes files and prevents the commit, review and re-stage those files, then create a new commit attempt; do not use --amend. A failed hook can leave all intended changes staged. Keep the staged changes, fix the reported lint issue, rerun the affected test, and retry the normal commit; do not use --no-verify or amend to bypass the failure. When editing harness files such as AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, or skills, run the shared validation in .agents/skills/harness-improvement/references/validation.md before committing. If full-repository spec lint fails on a pre-existing duplicate acceptance ID while the active hook requires a clean result, confirm it is baseline-only, make the smallest unique-ID correction needed for that hook, rerun the full lint, and record the baseline correction in the implementation record. Do not bypass the hook or leave the repository-wide failure unexplained. If a JSX layout-only edit touches an element containing an existing hardcoded user-facing literal, i18n-new-code may classify that literal as changed copy and fail. Localize it and add matching en/pseudo catalog entries before retrying; verify with cd apps/web && pnpm run i18n:check and the normal hook receipt. If the commit command returns an exec_command session_id, preserve the full result and poll that same session until it is terminal; never start a second commit attempt while the first is live. Retain the exact temporary log path from that single attempt for the hook receipt. Capture the normal hook stream in a temporary log while committing and use that log to record each hook ID and result. Run git commit directly and preserve its full output; do not infer hook results from a condensed launcher summary. For example:

   COMMIT_LOG="$(mktemp "${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/kandev-commit.XXXXXX.log")"
   set -o pipefail
   git commit -m "type(scope): description" 2>&1 | tee "$COMMIT_LOG" >/dev/null
   

   Keep the commit and tee output unmodified when parsing the log. Read it to extract every hook ID/result and confirm the receipt still says bypass: false, rather than printing the full stream again. Remove the exact temporary file after copying the receipt into the handoff:

   unlink "$COMMIT_LOG"
   

   If a timed-out hook leaves a commit or linter process running, inspect git status, git log, and only that attempt's processes before retrying. Wait for or stop the owned process tree first; do not mistake a transient parallel golangci-lint is running message for a second commit failure. If the commit exits nonzero, preserve and print the full or bounded log before cleanup so hook diagnostics are not lost. Remove the temporary log only after copying a successful hook receipt or recording the failed output. When extracting receipt lines from a nested shell, use shell-safe single- quoted awk or sed expressions; a double-quoted sed range containing $ can be expanded by the outer shell and hide the receipt. Record active hooks that report Skipped or no files to check as skipped; do not infer their result from the launcher's summary, and retain the log until both the pre-commit and commit-msg results are recorded.

   If a hook fails only because another worktree is already running golangci-lint (for example, parallel golangci-lint is running), wait for that run to finish and retry the same commit. Do not bypass hooks or change code for this transient lock; verify the retry has a normal hook receipt and a clean worktree.

   If a hook fails with ENOSPC, load /verify's Disk-constrained runners guidance: inspect df, preserve managed caches, relocate only the affected cache to an explicit persistent agent-owned path, and never bypass hooks or blindly delete shared caches.

6. Return a hook receipt: After a successful commit, report:

   parent_sha: <pre-commit HEAD>
   commit_sha: <new HEAD>
   pre_commit_hook: active|inactive
   commit_msg_hook: active|inactive
   hook_results: <hook-id=passed|skipped, ...>
   bypass: false|true
   commit_result: pass
   worktree: clean|dirty
   

   verify may use the receipt only when both hooks are active, bypass is false, the commit succeeded, the current HEAD still equals commit_sha, and the worktree is clean. The commit worker does not run verification.