Smart Commit

Smart Commit

Read first: @skills/push-ci/references/authorization-contract.md before --execute commits anything — § Proactive Offer for the menu and the four Goal mode conditions, § Efficacy Boundary for what the per-use approval authorizes. If that Read fails, stop and report it; commit nothing (manual mode, which only prints commands, is unaffected).

Analyze uncommitted changes → group by cohesion → generate commit messages → output git commands (or execute directly with --execute).

Workflow

sequenceDiagram
    participant C as Claude
    participant U as User
    C->>C: Step 1a: Detect permissions
    C->>C: Step 1b: Learn commit style
    C->>C: Step 1c: Identity diagnostics
    C->>C: Step 1d: Signing diagnostics
    C->>C: Step 1e: AI guard readiness
    C->>C: Step 2: Pre-flight check (precommit)
    C->>C: Step 3: Collect changes + exclude sensitive files
    C->>C: Step 4: Group (high cohesion)
    C->>U: Show commit plan (with Author/Signing/Guard)
    U->>C: Confirm/adjust (Goal mode: printed with a [GOAL_COMMIT] record, not asked)
    loop Each commit group
        C->>C: Read diff → generate message
        C->>C: AI trailer sanitization
        alt --execute mode
            C->>C: Runtime validation → git commit
        else manual mode
            C->>U: Output git commands
        end
    end
    C->>C: Step 6: Verification + post-commit leak detection

Git Environment Policy (applies to every step below)

Every git command this skill runs itself — read or write, either mode — resolves the same question: which repository, tree, index, ancestry and configuration does it act on? The answer is pinned two ways, both defined in git-environment.md § 1: the inherited GIT_* variables are stripped, and every command carries -C "$REPO_ROOT".

Where the stripping happens depends on who runs git:

Every /bin/bash -p -- "$INSPECT" … call is the third row — all ten of them, across Steps 1b–1e, 3, 4, 5a and 6 — because smart-commit-inspect.sh unsets the list once for the whole process. $REPO_ROOT is still re-derived in every fenced block: each block is a separate shell, so nothing carries over.

What the skill prints is governed by § 2 of that file — the same list, the same spelling.

Step 1: Detect Permissions + Learn Style

1a. Permission Detection

Read CLAUDE.md and .claude/rules/git-workflow.md to determine mode:

Default to manual mode. Direct execution requires explicit --execute flag regardless of project git restrictions.

--execute mode: When --execute is passed, use AskUserQuestion to show the full commit plan and get explicit user approval before executing. This is a skill-level exception to git-workflow rules (same pattern as /push-ci). The one exception to asking is § Goal mode below.

Goal mode (git-autonomy FR-17)

While a goal the user set or approved is active, and rules/git-workflow.md § Proactive Offer "Goal mode" says all four of its conditions hold — re-checked before every commit, including review-state.js goal-commit --format=json returning ok: true — --execute runs without the plan approval: the plan is printed, headed by one record line, and execution proceeds:

[GOAL_COMMIT] goal=<first 12 hex of `git hash-object --stdin` of the goal condition> | branch=<branch> | digest=<digest> | <ISO8601>

The goal text itself is never printed — a user may have put a secret in it. Everything else in this skill is unchanged: every diagnostic and HALT, the sensitive-file exclusion, the attribution guard on smart-commit-execute.sh commit, and every judgement question (an identity conflict, an ambiguous grouping, a --sign/--no-sign override) still asks. --ai-co-author is never passed on this path: when the user explicitly asks for it, Goal mode does not apply and the ordinary per-use approval runs, so the attribution whitelist is always reached through the user. needs_branch_allowance: true means the first goal-mode commit on that protected branch asks first (recommend a feature branch; if declined, ask to allow the branch for this goal).

1b. Learn Commit Style

REPO_ROOT=$(/usr/bin/env -u GIT_DIR -u GIT_WORK_TREE -u GIT_COMMON_DIR -u GIT_INDEX_FILE -u GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY -u GIT_ALTERNATE_OBJECT_DIRECTORIES -u GIT_NAMESPACE -u GIT_CEILING_DIRECTORIES -u GIT_GLOB_PATHSPECS -u GIT_ICASE_PATHSPECS -u GIT_NOGLOB_PATHSPECS -u GIT_LITERAL_PATHSPECS -u GIT_CONFIG -u GIT_CONFIG_PARAMETERS -u GIT_CONFIG_COUNT -u GIT_CONFIG_NOSYSTEM -u GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL -u GIT_CONFIG_SYSTEM -u GIT_IMPLICIT_WORK_TREE -u GIT_GRAFT_FILE -u GIT_SHALLOW_FILE -u GIT_PREFIX -u GIT_NO_REPLACE_OBJECTS -u GIT_REPLACE_REF_BASE -u GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF -u ALLOW_AI_COAUTHOR git rev-parse --show-toplevel && printf .) || { echo "⚠️ could not resolve the repository root — aborting" >&2; exit 1; }
REPO_ROOT=${REPO_ROOT%.}; REPO_ROOT=${REPO_ROOT%$'\n'}
INSPECT="$REPO_ROOT/.claude/scripts/smart-commit-inspect.sh"
[ -r "$INSPECT" ] || INSPECT="$REPO_ROOT/skills/smart-commit/scripts/smart-commit-inspect.sh"
[ -r "$INSPECT" ] || { echo "⚠️ smart-commit-inspect.sh not found — run /install-scripts" >&2; exit 1; }
/bin/bash -p -- "$INSPECT" style

Infer format, type vocabulary, subject conventions (capitalization/tense/ticket ID), and language from recent commits.

1c. Identity Diagnostics

Shared diagnostic (preferred path):

REPO_ROOT=$(/usr/bin/env -u GIT_DIR -u GIT_WORK_TREE -u GIT_COMMON_DIR -u GIT_INDEX_FILE -u GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY -u GIT_ALTERNATE_OBJECT_DIRECTORIES -u GIT_NAMESPACE -u GIT_CEILING_DIRECTORIES -u GIT_GLOB_PATHSPECS -u GIT_ICASE_PATHSPECS -u GIT_NOGLOB_PATHSPECS -u GIT_LITERAL_PATHSPECS -u GIT_CONFIG -u GIT_CONFIG_PARAMETERS -u GIT_CONFIG_COUNT -u GIT_CONFIG_NOSYSTEM -u GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL -u GIT_CONFIG_SYSTEM -u GIT_IMPLICIT_WORK_TREE -u GIT_GRAFT_FILE -u GIT_SHALLOW_FILE -u GIT_PREFIX -u GIT_NO_REPLACE_OBJECTS -u GIT_REPLACE_REF_BASE -u GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF -u ALLOW_AI_COAUTHOR git rev-parse --show-toplevel && printf .) || { echo "⚠️ could not resolve the repository root — aborting" >&2; exit 1; }
REPO_ROOT=${REPO_ROOT%.}; REPO_ROOT=${REPO_ROOT%$'\n'}
/usr/bin/env -u GIT_DIR -u GIT_WORK_TREE -u GIT_COMMON_DIR -u GIT_INDEX_FILE -u GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY -u GIT_ALTERNATE_OBJECT_DIRECTORIES -u GIT_NAMESPACE -u GIT_CEILING_DIRECTORIES -u GIT_GLOB_PATHSPECS -u GIT_ICASE_PATHSPECS -u GIT_NOGLOB_PATHSPECS -u GIT_LITERAL_PATHSPECS -u GIT_CONFIG -u GIT_CONFIG_PARAMETERS -u GIT_CONFIG_COUNT -u GIT_CONFIG_NOSYSTEM -u GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL -u GIT_CONFIG_SYSTEM -u GIT_IMPLICIT_WORK_TREE -u GIT_GRAFT_FILE -u GIT_SHALLOW_FILE -u GIT_PREFIX -u GIT_NO_REPLACE_OBJECTS -u GIT_REPLACE_REF_BASE -u GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF -u ALLOW_AI_COAUTHOR /bin/bash -p -- "$REPO_ROOT/scripts/run-skill.sh" git-profile git-profile.sh doctor --json

The prefix goes on the delegation, not inside the helper: git-profile.sh runs its own git commands, and stripping at the boundary is what makes it and the fallback below agree. The interpreter is /bin/bash -p -- for the reason given once in execute-mode.md § Why the entrypoint is spelled /bin/bash -p -- — it applies here too, and this is the path whose JSON decides HALT versus continue.

Known limitation. In a consuming project this delegation cannot resolve git-profile.sh, so the fallback below is the normal path there — not a broken installation. Two stacked defects, both shared by the eleven skills that delegate through the runner; the first could be fixed here alone, but not without diverging this one skill from the other ten, and the second would remain: 4-implementation.md § 6.

If the script succeeds, parse the JSON output:

• status: "ok" → silent continue, use effective_identity and signing fields
• status: "warn" → display warnings from issues[], continue
• status: "halt" → display halt issues, stop with guidance

If the script fails (not found, parse error, non-zero exit), fall back to the diagnostic below. Infrastructure failure = warn-only; never halt on fallback path itself.

Fallback — the claim is narrow: the two still share the root derivation, git and /bin/bash, and nothing here survives those failing. What they no longer share is the resolution — the preferred path goes through scripts/run-skill.sh, the fallback resolves smart-commit-inspect.sh by path, installed copy first. A missing or broken runner therefore takes out the first and leaves the second working. Why that separation is load-bearing: 4-implementation.md § 5.

REPO_ROOT=$(/usr/bin/env -u GIT_DIR -u GIT_WORK_TREE -u GIT_COMMON_DIR -u GIT_INDEX_FILE -u GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY -u GIT_ALTERNATE_OBJECT_DIRECTORIES -u GIT_NAMESPACE -u GIT_CEILING_DIRECTORIES -u GIT_GLOB_PATHSPECS -u GIT_ICASE_PATHSPECS -u GIT_NOGLOB_PATHSPECS -u GIT_LITERAL_PATHSPECS -u GIT_CONFIG -u GIT_CONFIG_PARAMETERS -u GIT_CONFIG_COUNT -u GIT_CONFIG_NOSYSTEM -u GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL -u GIT_CONFIG_SYSTEM -u GIT_IMPLICIT_WORK_TREE -u GIT_GRAFT_FILE -u GIT_SHALLOW_FILE -u GIT_PREFIX -u GIT_NO_REPLACE_OBJECTS -u GIT_REPLACE_REF_BASE -u GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF -u ALLOW_AI_COAUTHOR git rev-parse --show-toplevel && printf .) || { echo "⚠️ could not resolve the repository root — aborting" >&2; exit 1; }
REPO_ROOT=${REPO_ROOT%.}; REPO_ROOT=${REPO_ROOT%$'\n'}
INSPECT="$REPO_ROOT/.claude/scripts/smart-commit-inspect.sh"
[ -r "$INSPECT" ] || INSPECT="$REPO_ROOT/skills/smart-commit/scripts/smart-commit-inspect.sh"
[ -r "$INSPECT" ] || { echo "⚠️ smart-commit-inspect.sh not found — run /install-scripts" >&2; exit 1; }
/bin/bash -p -- "$INSPECT" identity

Read the output by key and kind, never by line number. Field 1 is the key, field 2 is the kind — value, empty or unset:

The kind is written by the script, never read out of the config, and every data field is escaped (\\, \n, \t, \r, and every other C0 control byte plus DEL as \xHH — P8v) — the value, the origin path, the four env values below, and the effective ident (P8t). So one record is always exactly one line with a fixed field count, and no data can forge a key or a kind. Both properties are load-bearing: without them a user.name containing a newline emits a second line reading user.name<TAB>unset and the HALT below fires on a repository that commits perfectly well; a GIT_AUTHOR_NAME containing one forges a whole identity record; and a GIT_AUTHOR_NAME containing a raw ESC byte carries an ANSI/terminal escape sequence straight into whatever prints the record later.

Records for a key arrive in git's own precedence order, so the LAST one is what git would use. Read that line, not the presence of any line — an empty value in ~/.gitconfig overridden by a real one in .git/config produces both an empty and a value line, and only the last of them describes the commit that would be made.

The script then prints the four env lines, and finally the four lines that carry the verdict — two effective, two configured. On the abort path it exits before reaching any of them.

The env lines carry the same key/kind shape (minus scope and origin, which the environment does not have), because exported-and-empty and not-exported are different states and one blank line cannot say which:

GIT_AUTHOR_NAME<TAB>value<TAB><value>     # exported, non-empty — this is what the commit uses
GIT_AUTHOR_NAME<TAB>empty                 # exported and empty — NOT the same as unset
GIT_AUTHOR_NAME<TAB>unset                 # not in the environment; config decides this role

The last four lines are the answer; everything above them says where it came from.

effective<TAB>author<TAB>value<TAB><ident>      # what `git commit` would record for this role
effective<TAB>committer<TAB>unresolvable        # git refuses this role outright
configured<TAB>author<TAB>yes                   # the ident came from something set for THIS repo
configured<TAB>committer<TAB>no                  # it fell through to $EMAIL or git's OS guess

effective is git var GIT_AUTHOR_IDENT / GIT_COMMITTER_IDENT, asked of git rather than rebuilt here. git applies the whole chain — GIT_<role>_* when exported, else user.*, else EMAIL, else a guess from the OS — then runs its ident parser and refuses in exactly the cases git commit refuses. Two consequences a table over the config rows could not reach, both measured (§ 10.6):

The trailing <unix-seconds> <tz> git appends is stripped: the question is who, not when.

configured is git -c user.useConfigOnly=true var GIT_<ROLE>_IDENT, asked the same way as effective — not a re-derivation from the records above. git's useConfigOnly mode refuses the whole fallback half of resolution (EMAIL, the OS guess) and succeeds only when the ident came from something set for this repository or this invocation: user.*/author.*/committer.* config, or an exported GIT_<role>_NAME/GIT_<role>_EMAIL. It exists because effective alone cannot make this distinction — git's OS guess resolves successfully, so a value line looks identical whether it came from .git/config or from uname. Measured: configured reads no for both EMAIL and a bare OS guess alike, and that grouping is not a gap — from the operator's view neither is a value they set for this repository, and git config --local fixes both the same way. Oracles: P8r, P8s.

Decision logic — read the effective lines first, then use the records to locate the cause:

Locating the cause. None of these rows is a verdict on its own — the verdict is above. They say which input produced it, and therefore which fix can reach it. An env line outranks config for the role it names: git takes GIT_AUTHOR_NAME when exported and falls back to user.name only when it is not, so a role resolved from the environment is never fixed by git config.

The same outranking happens one level down, inside config itself: author.*/committer.* outrank user.* for their own role when both are set (git >= 2.31) — author.name wins for the author role even if user.name is also configured, and symmetrically for committer.*. Both keys can show an equally-valid value record below; the records alone do not say which file git actually used. effective does — it is the row that says which config key's file to edit, not the mere presence of a value record for user.*.

Oracles: P8, P8b–P8u; the measured forgeries and misreads: 4-implementation.md § 10.

Design principles:

• Diagnostic, not override: Do not use git -c user.name=... to override. Respect includeIf settings.
• Ask git, do not model git: the verdict comes from git var; the records exist to locate a cause, never to re-derive the answer.
• Interrupt only on anomaly: Normal identity resolution produces no prompt.
• Conflict ≠ multiple sources: includeIf producing multiple config sources that resolve to the same value = normal.

1d. Signing Diagnostics

REPO_ROOT=$(/usr/bin/env -u GIT_DIR -u GIT_WORK_TREE -u GIT_COMMON_DIR -u GIT_INDEX_FILE -u GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY -u GIT_ALTERNATE_OBJECT_DIRECTORIES -u GIT_NAMESPACE -u GIT_CEILING_DIRECTORIES -u GIT_GLOB_PATHSPECS -u GIT_ICASE_PATHSPECS -u GIT_NOGLOB_PATHSPECS -u GIT_LITERAL_PATHSPECS -u GIT_CONFIG -u GIT_CONFIG_PARAMETERS -u GIT_CONFIG_COUNT -u GIT_CONFIG_NOSYSTEM -u GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL -u GIT_CONFIG_SYSTEM -u GIT_IMPLICIT_WORK_TREE -u GIT_GRAFT_FILE -u GIT_SHALLOW_FILE -u GIT_PREFIX -u GIT_NO_REPLACE_OBJECTS -u GIT_REPLACE_REF_BASE -u GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF -u ALLOW_AI_COAUTHOR git rev-parse --show-toplevel && printf .) || { echo "⚠️ could not resolve the repository root — aborting" >&2; exit 1; }
REPO_ROOT=${REPO_ROOT%.}; REPO_ROOT=${REPO_ROOT%$'\n'}
INSPECT="$REPO_ROOT/.claude/scripts/smart-commit-inspect.sh"
[ -r "$INSPECT" ] || INSPECT="$REPO_ROOT/skills/smart-commit/scripts/smart-commit-inspect.sh"
[ -r "$INSPECT" ] || { echo "⚠️ smart-commit-inspect.sh not found — run /install-scripts" >&2; exit 1; }
/bin/bash -p -- "$INSPECT" signing

Decision logic:

signing answers in the same shape as Step 1c — <key><TAB><kind>[…] for commit.gpgsign, user.signingkey and gpg.format, in that order, read by key and never by line number, with the last record for a key winning. It used to print three bare lines, which a multi-line value silently shifted (§ 10.2). Oracles: P9, P9b, P9c.

commit.gpgsign is read as a boolean, so its value field is only ever the literal true or false: git normalises 1/yes/on/True, and a valueless gpgsign — which git reads as true — is no longer byte-identical to gpgsign =, which git reads as false. That distinction cannot be recovered from the raw string, which is why it is git that converts and not a row in this table. commit.gpgsign<TAB>empty is therefore unreachable, and a non-boolean value is a read failure rather than a verdict. Oracles: P9d–P9f; measurements: § 10.3.

Post-commit visibility (--execute mode):

REPO_ROOT=$(/usr/bin/env -u GIT_DIR -u GIT_WORK_TREE -u GIT_COMMON_DIR -u GIT_INDEX_FILE -u GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY -u GIT_ALTERNATE_OBJECT_DIRECTORIES -u GIT_NAMESPACE -u GIT_CEILING_DIRECTORIES -u GIT_GLOB_PATHSPECS -u GIT_ICASE_PATHSPECS -u GIT_NOGLOB_PATHSPECS -u GIT_LITERAL_PATHSPECS -u GIT_CONFIG -u GIT_CONFIG_PARAMETERS -u GIT_CONFIG_COUNT -u GIT_CONFIG_NOSYSTEM -u GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL -u GIT_CONFIG_SYSTEM -u GIT_IMPLICIT_WORK_TREE -u GIT_GRAFT_FILE -u GIT_SHALLOW_FILE -u GIT_PREFIX -u GIT_NO_REPLACE_OBJECTS -u GIT_REPLACE_REF_BASE -u GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF -u ALLOW_AI_COAUTHOR git rev-parse --show-toplevel && printf .) || { echo "⚠️ could not resolve the repository root — aborting" >&2; exit 1; }
REPO_ROOT=${REPO_ROOT%.}; REPO_ROOT=${REPO_ROOT%$'\n'}
INSPECT="$REPO_ROOT/.claude/scripts/smart-commit-inspect.sh"
[ -r "$INSPECT" ] || INSPECT="$REPO_ROOT/skills/smart-commit/scripts/smart-commit-inspect.sh"
[ -r "$INSPECT" ] || { echo "⚠️ smart-commit-inspect.sh not found — run /install-scripts" >&2; exit 1; }
/bin/bash -p -- "$INSPECT" signature

It prints one character, git's %G? alphabet (git log manual, git 2.54.0), and nothing else. Read the character, not the line count — and treat an empty stdout with a non-zero exit as its own state, because a repository with no commit to inspect is not an unsigned commit:

Oracles: P11, P11b.

Signing override flags (--sign / --no-sign):

When --sign or --no-sign is used, AskUserQuestion to confirm the override and warn about potential branch protection / CI policy conflicts.

1e. AI Guard Readiness

# Hook resolution is git's answer, not ours: `--git-path` honours core.hooksPath
# (including `~` and `%(prefix)`) and resolves linked worktrees. Why the three states
# differ: test/scripts/smart-commit-inspect.test.js `P6`. Why a resolution FAILURE is
# a fourth state and not `guard:missing`: smart-commit-inspect.sh, `guard`.
REPO_ROOT=$(/usr/bin/env -u GIT_DIR -u GIT_WORK_TREE -u GIT_COMMON_DIR -u GIT_INDEX_FILE -u GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY -u GIT_ALTERNATE_OBJECT_DIRECTORIES -u GIT_NAMESPACE -u GIT_CEILING_DIRECTORIES -u GIT_GLOB_PATHSPECS -u GIT_ICASE_PATHSPECS -u GIT_NOGLOB_PATHSPECS -u GIT_LITERAL_PATHSPECS -u GIT_CONFIG -u GIT_CONFIG_PARAMETERS -u GIT_CONFIG_COUNT -u GIT_CONFIG_NOSYSTEM -u GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL -u GIT_CONFIG_SYSTEM -u GIT_IMPLICIT_WORK_TREE -u GIT_GRAFT_FILE -u GIT_SHALLOW_FILE -u GIT_PREFIX -u GIT_NO_REPLACE_OBJECTS -u GIT_REPLACE_REF_BASE -u GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF -u ALLOW_AI_COAUTHOR git rev-parse --show-toplevel && printf .) || { echo "⚠️ could not resolve the repository root — aborting" >&2; exit 1; }
REPO_ROOT=${REPO_ROOT%.}; REPO_ROOT=${REPO_ROOT%$'\n'}
INSPECT="$REPO_ROOT/.claude/scripts/smart-commit-inspect.sh"
[ -r "$INSPECT" ] || INSPECT="$REPO_ROOT/skills/smart-commit/scripts/smart-commit-inspect.sh"
[ -r "$INSPECT" ] || { echo "⚠️ smart-commit-inspect.sh not found — run /install-scripts" >&2; exit 1; }
/bin/bash -p -- "$INSPECT" guard

Decision logic:

Important: Hook installation is NOT a blocker for --execute mode — runtime validation (Step 5c) is an independent safety layer.

Step 2: Pre-flight Check

Check precommit status by change type — structural .md under skills/ has test coverage (skills-schema.test.js) that catches reference errors CI would find.

Default: advisory, not a gate. /smart-commit can be invoked before review has ever run — the terminal completion invariant (rules/auto-loop.md) constrains the moment a change is declared complete, not the moment this skill is called — so on the common path, where auto-loop already ran review and precommit and noted the verdict, re-halting on the same evidence is friction, not added safety.

--strict-preflight: opt-in flag restoring the original Halt behavior for the not-fresh row — the passed row already continues silently in both columns, so there is nothing for the flag to change there. Manual and --execute modes honor it identically — the flag changes Step 2's own decision, not which mode invoked the skill.

The warning must be actionable — name the gate and the command, not just "not passed":

⚠️ Pre-flight: 2 of 3 changed files have no fresh check this session.
  - src/service/rpc.ts (code): run /precommit-fast or /precommit
  - docs/features/x/2-tech-spec.md (other .md): run /codex-review-doc
Continuing without --strict-preflight. Pass --strict-preflight to halt on this instead.

Freshness: A "passed" result is only valid if it ran after the most recent file edits in this session. Stale results from earlier in the session do not count — freshness decides which row above applies, not whether that row warns or halts.

Policy note: see "Default: advisory, not a gate" above for the rationale — this only relaxes this skill's own extra pass over verdicts already noted; @rules/auto-loop.md's gates are unaffected, and /precommit//codex-review-doc are not exempted for anyone still passing through them. Worth stating plainly: the Stop hook is a reminder, never a block (hook-lightweighting § 3.2 — it emits markdown and exits 0), so Step 2's own Halt is the only blocking barrier this side of the git hooks between an unreviewed edit and a commit. --strict-preflight is how to raise that barrier, not a stylistic preference.

Fast vs full: /precommit-fast runs test:fast; CI runs test:ci. Deletions (skills, scripts) can leave orphaned test files that only fail in CI, so when only /precommit-fast ran, output: ⚠️ Only fast tests ran. If you deleted files, consider /precommit (full suite) to catch orphaned imports before commit.

Step 3: Collect Changes

# Root-relative by construction — `git status --short` reports paths relative to the
# CURRENT directory, so a subdirectory would emit pathspecs a later `-C` misresolves.
REPO_ROOT=$(/usr/bin/env -u GIT_DIR -u GIT_WORK_TREE -u GIT_COMMON_DIR -u GIT_INDEX_FILE -u GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY -u GIT_ALTERNATE_OBJECT_DIRECTORIES -u GIT_NAMESPACE -u GIT_CEILING_DIRECTORIES -u GIT_GLOB_PATHSPECS -u GIT_ICASE_PATHSPECS -u GIT_NOGLOB_PATHSPECS -u GIT_LITERAL_PATHSPECS -u GIT_CONFIG -u GIT_CONFIG_PARAMETERS -u GIT_CONFIG_COUNT -u GIT_CONFIG_NOSYSTEM -u GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL -u GIT_CONFIG_SYSTEM -u GIT_IMPLICIT_WORK_TREE -u GIT_GRAFT_FILE -u GIT_SHALLOW_FILE -u GIT_PREFIX -u GIT_NO_REPLACE_OBJECTS -u GIT_REPLACE_REF_BASE -u GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF -u ALLOW_AI_COAUTHOR git rev-parse --show-toplevel && printf .) || { echo "⚠️ could not resolve the repository root — aborting" >&2; exit 1; }
REPO_ROOT=${REPO_ROOT%.}; REPO_ROOT=${REPO_ROOT%$'\n'}
INSPECT="$REPO_ROOT/.claude/scripts/smart-commit-inspect.sh"
[ -r "$INSPECT" ] || INSPECT="$REPO_ROOT/skills/smart-commit/scripts/smart-commit-inspect.sh"
[ -r "$INSPECT" ] || { echo "⚠️ smart-commit-inspect.sh not found — run /install-scripts" >&2; exit 1; }
/bin/bash -p -- "$INSPECT" collect

Classify changes:

Check unmerged first — it pre-empts every row below it, including staged. UU/AA/DD (and the AU/UD/UA/DU variants) all carry a non-blank column 1, so reading the table top-to-bottom without this note routes an unresolved conflict into "staged" — group it with no git add needed, then git commit a path the merge never finished. Measured: UU after a real git merge conflict.

The -> in those two rows is a separator, not part of a path, and telling the two apart is not a guess: git quotes any path containing ->, in every status shape. Measured on an untracked file, a modified file, and a rename in each direction — the four lines collect produced:

?? "a -> b.txt"
 M "a -> b.txt"
R  src.txt -> "dst -> x.txt"
R  "a -> b.txt" -> plain.txt

So an unquoted -> is always the rename separator. Splitting on it without that check is what turns a -> b.txt into two pathspecs that match nothing.

Exclusion rules (warn user, do not include):

.env* | *.pem | *.key | *.p12 | id_rsa* | .aws/credentials | *.secret
credentials.json | .npmrc | token.txt | node_modules/ | dist/ | .cache/ | .gitignore'd

Partial-staged detection: If a file has both staged and unstaged changes (MM in git status), warn user and ask them to resolve first.

--scope filtering: When --scope <path> is specified, only include changes under that path. Apply after collecting all changes:

REPO_ROOT=$(/usr/bin/env -u GIT_DIR -u GIT_WORK_TREE -u GIT_COMMON_DIR -u GIT_INDEX_FILE -u GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY -u GIT_ALTERNATE_OBJECT_DIRECTORIES -u GIT_NAMESPACE -u GIT_CEILING_DIRECTORIES -u GIT_GLOB_PATHSPECS -u GIT_ICASE_PATHSPECS -u GIT_NOGLOB_PATHSPECS -u GIT_LITERAL_PATHSPECS -u GIT_CONFIG -u GIT_CONFIG_PARAMETERS -u GIT_CONFIG_COUNT -u GIT_CONFIG_NOSYSTEM -u GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL -u GIT_CONFIG_SYSTEM -u GIT_IMPLICIT_WORK_TREE -u GIT_GRAFT_FILE -u GIT_SHALLOW_FILE -u GIT_PREFIX -u GIT_NO_REPLACE_OBJECTS -u GIT_REPLACE_REF_BASE -u GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF -u ALLOW_AI_COAUTHOR git rev-parse --show-toplevel && printf .) || { echo "⚠️ could not resolve the repository root — aborting" >&2; exit 1; }
REPO_ROOT=${REPO_ROOT%.}; REPO_ROOT=${REPO_ROOT%$'\n'}
INSPECT="$REPO_ROOT/.claude/scripts/smart-commit-inspect.sh"
[ -r "$INSPECT" ] || INSPECT="$REPO_ROOT/skills/smart-commit/scripts/smart-commit-inspect.sh"
[ -r "$INSPECT" ] || { echo "⚠️ smart-commit-inspect.sh not found — run /install-scripts" >&2; exit 1; }
/bin/bash -p -- "$INSPECT" scope '<path>'

Substitute the --scope argument for '<path>', single-quoted, and a path containing an apostrophe is written '\'' at that position (the same rule references/git-environment.md § 2 gives for printed commands; without it the fence is syntactically broken rather than merely wrong) — written out rather than passed as "$SCOPE_PATH" because each fence is one tool call, so one shell: a variable this fence never assigned expands to the empty string, the script refuses it (scope: the path must not be empty, exit 2) and the scoping the caller asked for never happens — loudly, but it still does not happen. Same rule Step 5c.3 states for "$EXECUTE".

Exclude changes outside the scope path. --scope takes a path, never a glob: every operand carries :(literal), so *.ts matches a file literally named *.ts and nothing else. If no changes remain after filtering → report "No changes under <path>" and stop.

If no changes → report "No uncommitted changes" and stop.

A non-zero exit from collect is not an empty change set. The subcommand accumulates the status of all three git commands, so one failing among two that printed still surfaces — output with no status lines can mean a broken git status, not a clean tree. Report the stderr and stop; never take the "no changes" branch on a non-zero exit. A successful empty answer is a real clean tree: collect, status and scope all pin --untracked-files=all, so showUntrackedFiles=no cannot fake one, and a wholly-untracked directory is enumerated per file rather than collapsed to ?? dir/ — which is what lets the exclusion list below match a secret by filename. Two kinds of directory stay collapsed because git will not traverse them, an embedded repository and a symlink to a directory; both stage as a gitlink or a symlink and carry no file content, so nothing hides inside them. This holds wherever those three subcommands are used, Step 6's re-check included. The cost is real and accepted: a large untracked tree that is not gitignored now lists one line per file. Triggers, measurements and the trade-off: P15, P17, P17b, P17c in test/scripts/smart-commit-inspect.test.js and 4-implementation.md § 9.

Selection is live git status, whole tree. Every uncommitted change collect reported — minus the exclusion rules and any --scope filter above — is a candidate for grouping. There is no session-scoped filter: the hook-maintained session_commit_scope store retired with the state machine that wrote it (hook-lightweighting § 3.4), and nothing now records which files this session touched. What replaces it is not a narrower selection but a visible one: the Commit Plan in Step 4 lists every file it is about to group, and the user confirming that plan is the selection decision — under § Goal mode the printed plan is. A file the user does not want committed is removed at the plan, or fenced out up front with --scope.