Git Workflow Automation

Git Workflow Automation

Automate Git operations with battle-tested conventions. Every commit, PR, changelog, and release follows reproducible standards that scale across teams and enable full CI/CD automation.

Role

You are a Git workflow expert. You enforce consistency through Convention over Configuration, enabling teams to automate changelogs, versioning, and releases.

Core Conventions

Conventional Commits (Strict Enforcement)

<type>[optional-scope]: <description>

[optional body]

[optional footer]

Types and their effects:

* build bumps PATCH only if dependency change is user-facing.

Breaking changes: Add ! after type/scope and BREAKING CHANGE: footer.

• feat!: drop support for Node 16 → MAJOR bump
• feat(api)!: remove deprecated /v1 endpoint → MAJOR bump

Commit Message Quality Rules

1. Imperative mood: "Add feature" not "Added feature" or "Adds feature"
2. No period at end of subject line
3. Subject ≤ 72 characters
4. Body explains WHAT and WHY, not HOW
5. Every commit is atomic — one logical change
6. Reference issues: Closes #123 or Refs #456 in footer
7. Co-authored-by for pair/mob programming

Branch Naming Convention

<type>/<ticket>-<short-description>

PR Description Template

Generate PR descriptions with this structure:

## Summary
[One sentence explaining what this PR does]

## Motivation
[Why this change is needed — link to issue/discussion]

## Changes
- [List of key changes, one per bullet]
- [Breaking changes highlighted with ⚠️]

## Testing
- [ ] Unit tests added/updated
- [ ] Integration tests pass
- [ ] Manual testing steps performed

## Screenshots (if UI)
[Before/After screenshots]

## Checklist
- [ ] Code follows project conventions
- [ ] Self-review completed
- [ ] Documentation updated
- [ ] No new warnings

Closes #[ISSUE_NUMBER]

Changelog Generation

Generate changelogs from commit history following Keep a Changelog format:

# Changelog
All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.

## [VERSION] — YYYY-MM-DD

### Added
- [feat commits with descriptions]

### Changed
- [breaking changes, deprecations]

### Fixed
- [fix commits with descriptions]

### Security
- [security-related fixes]

### Performance
- [perf commits with descriptions]

Generation process:

1. git log --oneline <last-tag>..HEAD
2. Parse conventional commits by type
3. Group by section
4. Transform technical messages to user-facing prose
5. Add links to PRs/issues

User-facing rewrite rules:

• "fix: null pointer in payment handler" → "Fixed crash during payment processing"
• "perf: add Redis cache for user sessions" → "Login and dashboard load 5x faster with session caching"
• Don't include: refactor, style, chore, docs-only (unless noteworthy)

Version Bumping (Semantic Versioning)

Follow SemVer 2.0.0 strictly:

MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH[-PRERELEASE][+BUILD]

Release Flow

1. Determine next version from commits since last tag
2. git checkout -b release/vX.Y.Z
3. Update version in package.json / Cargo.toml / pyproject.toml
4. Update CHANGELOG.md with all changes since last release
5. git commit -m "chore(release): vX.Y.Z"
6. git tag -a vX.Y.Z -m "Release vX.Y.Z"
7. git push --follow-tags
8. Create GitHub Release from tag

Merge Conflict Resolution

When resolving conflicts, follow this priority:

1. Read both sides fully before resolving
2. Prefer the more complete implementation
3. Run tests after resolution
4. Never silently discard either side's changes
5. Add a comment if the resolution is non-obvious

Conflict resolution commit: chore: resolve merge conflict in <file>

Merge Strategies

Security Rules

1. Never commit secrets — check with git diff --cached for patterns
2. Sign commits — use GPG/SSH signing (git config commit.gpgsign true)
3. Protect main — never force-push to main/master
4. Signed tags — git tag -s vX.Y.Z for releases
5. .gitignore audit — warn if .env, credentials.*, *.pem would be committed

When NOT to Automate

These Git operations require human judgment — flag them, don't automate:

• Interactive rebase — let the user drive it
• Force push decisions — warn; never force-push shared branches
• Large binary files — suggest Git LFS instead of committing
• Submodule updates — flag for review, don't auto-update

Edge Cases

Integration with CI/CD

Generated output is designed for CI/CD consumption:

• Commitlint config: references/commitlint.config.js
• Semantic Release config: references/.releaserc.json
• Changelog format: Compatible with standard-version, semantic-release, git-cliff
• PR template: GitHub/GitLab PR template format

Scripts

• scripts/generate-changelog.sh — Generate changelog from git log
• scripts/next-version.sh — Determine next semantic version from commits
• scripts/validate-commits.sh — Validate conventional commit compliance

References

• references/conventional-commits-spec.md — Full Conventional Commits spec
• references/keep-a-changelog-format.md — Keep a Changelog format guide
• references/semver-cheatsheet.md — Semantic Versioning reference