Commit Vault Changes

Stage and commit changes to the vault with properly formatted UK English conventional commit messages.

Usage

/commit                    # Auto-detect changes and commit
/commit -m "message"       # Commit with a specific message
/commit --amend            # Amend the previous commit (use sparingly)

Workflow

1. Review Changes

git status
git diff --stat

2. Stage Changes

Stage specific files rather than using git add -A:

• Never stage: .env, credentials, .secrets.baseline (unless updated by detect-secrets)
• Use git add -u for modified/deleted files with Unicode filenames (avoids octal encoding issues)
• Use git lfs track first for large binary files (PPTX, PDF >100MB)

3. Compose Commit Message

Follow these conventions:

• UK English spelling (e.g., "organise", "summarise", "colour")
• Imperative mood in subject line (e.g., "Add meeting note" not "Added meeting note")
• Subject line under 72 characters
• Body explains the "why" not the "what" (the diff shows the what)
• Always include the co-author tag

4. Commit Format

<type>: <subject>

<optional body>

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Types:

Type	When to Use
Add	New notes, skills, scripts, templates
Update	Enhancements to existing notes or config
Fix	Bug fixes, broken links, frontmatter errors
Refactor	Restructuring without changing meaning
Archive	Moving notes to Archive/
Remove	Deleting deprecated content
Docs	Documentation-only changes (CLAUDE.md, READMEs)

5. Pre-commit Checks

The vault has pre-commit hooks that may:

• Run detect-secrets (may need .secrets.baseline update)
• Check for large files (use git LFS for >100MB)
• Fix trailing whitespace and EOF

If the hook modifies files, re-stage with git add -u then commit again.

6. Post-commit

Run git status to verify the commit succeeded and working tree is clean.

Important

• Never force push to main without explicit user confirmation
• Never use --no-verify unless the user explicitly requests it
• If git commit fails with PermissionError on ~/.cache/pre-commit/, use dangerouslyDisableSandbox: true