gitcommit: A Smarter Way to Write Git Messages

By Mark Fletcher

December 23, 2024 - 2 minutes read - 234 words

Well, it's not far back to sanity, at least it's not for me. And if the wind is right, you can sail away and find serenity... — Sailing, Christopher Cross

I recently developed a new open-source tool called gitcommit to streamline the process of writing Git commit messages. This command-line assistant leverages Claude AI to analyze your staged changes and suggest clear, descriptive commit messages that adhere to best practices.

Key Features:

Contextual Analysis: Evaluates your staged changes to understand the context.
Message Suggestions: Provides well-formatted commit message recommendations.
Interactive Workflow: Allows you to accept the suggested message, edit it in Vim, or request a new suggestion.
Comprehensive Committing: Supports committing all changes with the -a flag.
Validation: Ensures that edited messages meet formatting standards.

Installation:

To install gitcommit, execute:

go install github.com/wingedpig/gitcommit@latest

Setup:

Obtain an API key from Anthropic at https://console.anthropic.com/. Then, set your API key:

export CLAUDE_API_KEY=your_api_key_here

Usage:

Show Help:
```
gitcommit -help
```
Commit Staged Changes:
```
gitcommit
```
Commit All Changes (Including Unstaged):
```
gitcommit -a
```

When you run gitcommit, it will prompt you for an initial commit message, analyze the changes, and suggest an improved message. You can then choose to accept, edit, or reject the suggestion.

gitcommit is released under the MIT License. Contributions are welcome; feel free to open issues or submit pull requests.

You can find the project on GitHub: https://github.com/wingedpig/gitcommit

I hope this tool proves helpful in your development workflow.