/git

name: git
description: >
  Load when planning or about to git commit, branch, push, rebase, resolve a merge conflict, open PR, stack PRs (even when gh-stack drives the stack),
  or write/update the description of a Pull Request (PR),
  attach a screenshot or video to a PR, respond to review comments, review a PR, watch/babysit a PR's CI or reviews.
  Carries the user's git conventions and style you are expected to match. Load as early as possible, the moment git or GitHub work is anywhere in the chat's future.
license: MIT
argument-hint: "[commit|branch|pr|attach|rebase|review|watch]"
metadata:
  author: sherifabdlnaby
  version: "0.5.1"

Git

Route first: each action's actual rules live in a `references/` file. Open the matching one before planning or acting; rules like commit grouping and branch naming shape the plan, so reading them late means redoing it. Several actions, several references.

**Versions.** Checked against gh 2.103.3 and gh-stack 0.3.0 on 2026-10-31.

Router

**Branches** (create, name, stack) -> [`references/branches.md`](references/branches.md) Switching branches, naming rules, ticket references, switching with a dirty tree, stacked PRs (conventions here, mechanics via the gh-stack skill), the gh-stack/manual path probe, cascade conflicts and verification, manual restacking fallback (after merge, chain of 3+, mid-stack push), force-pushing.

**Committing** -> [`references/commits.md`](references/commits.md) Pre-staging walk, file confirmation, message style, hook-failure handling, scoping, editor-free squash, empty commits.

**Pull Requests** (open, update) -> [`references/pull-requests.md`](references/pull-requests.md) Pre-flight survey, title format (including the stacked `[n/N]` marker), `gh pr create` flags, post-create lines, finishing PRs after `gh stack submit`, updating a body without clobbering it.

**PR body** (write or rewrite a description) -> [`references/pr-body.md`](references/pr-body.md) Voice for the product and engineer blocks, each block's rule in body order, where a visual sits and when to take a screenshot, receipts and the structure hook, the skeleton, linking, AI footers.

**Attach a screenshot or video** -> [`references/attach.md`](references/attach.md) `--attach` on create/edit/comment, body-file placement, screenshot framing guidance.

**Responding to review comments** (on your own/target PR) -> [`references/review-responses.md`](references/review-responses.md) Classify the reviewer (automated bot/AI tool, an AI-disclosed agent behind a human account, or a human), then fix / push back / escalate; in-thread replies, thread resolution, re-requesting review, batching a round into one GraphQL query and one aliased mutation, where a PR stands.

**Rebasing, merging, pulling, resolving conflicts** -> [`references/rebase.md`](references/rebase.md) Rebase vs merge, how to pull, who resolves which hunk, conflict guidance, force-with-lease, verification. Stacked-PR restack live in [`references/branches.md`](references/branches.md); read it too when the branch is in a stack.

**Reviewing someone else's PR** -> [`references/reviewing.md`](references/reviewing.md) Procedure: gather context, check out locally, trace the change, deliver a summary and review guide.

**Watch a PR's CI and reviews** -> [`references/watch.md`](references/watch.md) The four verdicts, the three modes (green CI / green and quiet / reviews only), the cheap sub-agent that runs the loop, the stale nudge. Uses `scripts/pr-watch.py`, never a sleep loop; its flags are in `references/watch-flags.md`.

**Stuck CI check with no manual retry** -> [`references/commits.md`, Empty commits](references/commits.md#empty-commits) The last-resort empty commit: when it beats retrying the check, and the zero-file-change guards that keep approvals alive.

Always

**Disclose AI.** Anything posted on GitHub on the user's behalf (PR body, comment, issue, ticket update) carries an **AI footer**. Commit messages carry no footer. The PR-body template lives in [`references/pr-body.md`](references/pr-body.md); the post templates, one per tier of human judgment behind the post (Agent Decided, Human Planned, Human Guided), live in [AI Disclosure](#ai-disclosure) below. Use them as verbatim as possible, do not write from memory.

**Reach for `gh` first.** Every GitHub action goes through the `gh` CLI; the GitHub MCP server is the fallback for what `gh` cannot do.

**Parallelize read-only calls.** Batch independent read-only `git`/`gh` calls (`status`, `diff`, `log`, `gh pr view/diff/checks`) into a single tool call; each sequential read is a roundtrip for nothing. Mutating commands (`commit`, `push`, `rebase`, `gh pr create/edit/merge`) stay sequential.

**Fewer round-trips, smaller payloads.** Batching is the first lever; these are the next four, your call when a one-off is cheaper:

• **One wide fetch, many narrow reads.** Anything you'll consult more than once in a task (PR JSON, `gh stack view --json`, a review-thread query) goes to a temp file once, and each step reads its

slice with `jq`. Re-fetch after anything you did that changes it (push, edit, reply, resolve); or if time passed and you've been idle, a snapshot is not a live view.

• **Ask for an answer, not a payload.** A count or a single field leaves as `--jq '.x'`; a yes/no leaves as an exit code (`git diff --quiet`, `git merge-base --is-ancestor`). JSON you read with your

own eyes is a payload.

• **Same-shape mutations ride one request.** GraphQL aliases: every reply, resolve, or title edit of a round in one `gh api graphql`. Aliases fail independently, so read the per-alias `errors[].path`,

not the exit code.

• **Bodies travel by file.** PR body or GraphQL query to a file, then `--body-file` / `-F query=@file`. (why: shell quoting eats backticks and `$`, and a file stays editable for the next update.)

Hooks that ship beside this skill check PR bodies deterministically, and they refuse a body they cannot read from a file.

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