---
name: git-commit-message-follow-project-convention
description: "Read this skill before creating any git commit to ensure the commit message matches the project's established patterns. Triggers on: git commit, /commit, creating commits, or any task that results in a git commit."
---

# Git Commit Message — Follow Project Convention

Before writing a commit message, analyze the project's recent commit history to learn its conventions. The project's actual conventions always take precedence over any general-purpose commit message guidelines.

## Before You Start (Important!)

- **If a `git-commit` skill is also available**, refer to it for general commit workflow guidance (staging, safety checks, etc.) — but always override its message formatting rules with the conventions identified below. For example, if this project does not use conventional commits, you should consider not using it even if the `git-commit` skill recommends it.
- **If the project provides it's own commit message guidelines in documentation or in project specific instructions**, prioritize those over the conventions you identify from the commit history. The project's official guidelines take precedence over both the commit history and general best practices.

## Step 1: Retrieve Recent Commits

Use a specialized tool if available. Otherwise, run:

```bash
git --no-pager log --oneline -30
```

## Step 2: Identify Conventions

Examine the retrieved commit messages and determine:

### 1. Commit Message Format

- **Conventional Commits**: Do messages follow the `type(scope): description` pattern (e.g., `feat: add login page`, `fix(auth): resolve token expiry`)?
- **Free-form**: Are messages plain sentences without a structured prefix?
- **Other format**: Is there a different structured pattern (e.g., ticket IDs like `[PROJ-123] Fix bug`, tagged formats like `[Feature] Add search`)?

### 2. Capitalization

- Is the first word of the description lowercase (`fix: add validation`) or uppercase (`fix: Add validation`)?
- If free-form, do messages start with a capital letter or not?
- Are there any other capitalization patterns (e.g., `GitHub` or `github`)?

### 3. Other Formatting

- **Scope usage**: If conventional commits are used, are scopes common or rare? What are the typical scopes?
  - Tip: run `git log -3000 --format='%s' | sed -nE 's/^(([a-z]+)?(\([^)]+\)|\[[^]]+\])?)!?:.*/\1/p' | grep . | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -50` to see the most common types and scopes.
- **Ticket/issue references**: Are issue numbers or ticket IDs included? Where (prefix, suffix, footer)?
- **Tense and mood**: Are messages in imperative mood (`add feature`) or past tense (`added feature`)?
- **Usage of code fences**: "update README.md" or "update `README.md`", "fix bug in `process_data()`"?
- **Message length**: Are descriptions typically terse or verbose?
- **Punctuation**: Do messages end with a period or not?

## Step 3: Write the Commit Message

Apply the observed conventions to the new commit message. Match the project's style exactly.