Git Helper

Git Helper

Inspect first, preserve user work, and use the repository's owning branch workflow for mutations. This skill covers Git itself; a stack or PR skill remains authoritative for branch creation, restacking, publishing, and synchronization.

Branch workflow ownership

In shepherdjerred/monorepo, every PR — human or agent, new or existing — is a git-spice stack. Load monorepo-delivery first; it is authoritative for branch creation, restacking, and publishing.

Use the provided isolated workspace; do not create a second worktree unless the user explicitly asks for one. Do not use a bare gh pr create or hand-written rebase in place of the owning stack tool.

Current baseline

Verified against Git 2.55.0 on 2026-08-03:

git --version

Recent versions added stable switch and restore, stash export/import, refs commands, last-modified, backfill, url-parse, format-rev, maintenance improvements, and additional partial-clone and pack tooling. repo, last-modified, history, format-rev, and backfill should be treated according to their documented experimental or evolving status.

Git's future-breaking-changes document is the source of truth for planned removals. Do not state a Git 3 release date or default change as certain until the project publishes it.

Read references/releases.md when adopting a recent command or upgrading Git. Read references/history-and-recovery.md for rebase, range-diff, bisect, reflog, stash, sparse checkout, bundles, and recovery. Read references/configuration-and-maintenance.md for config, hooks, credentials, maintenance, refs, and repository health.

Start read-only

Useful inspection commands:

git status --short --branch
git diff --stat
git diff
git diff --cached
git log --oneline --graph --decorate --all
git branch --verbose --verbose
git remote --verbose
git reflog
git worktree list --porcelain
git config --list --show-origin --show-scope

Use git show <ref>:<path>, git log <ref> -- <path>, and git diff <base>...<head> to inspect another branch without switching the working tree.

Preserve concurrent work

• Never discard, stash, reset, restore, or switch away from unexpected work just to investigate.
• Treat every existing modification as user-owned unless provenance proves otherwise.
• Keep all agents read-only on history unless explicitly assigned an isolated branch mutation.
• Verify the current branch and recent movements before pushing:

git status --short --branch
git reflog -n 10

• Stage whole files by explicit path. Do not use interactive, hunk-level, current-directory, or repository-wide staging in agent workflows.

Intentional commits

git add path/to/first path/to/second
git diff --cached --check
git diff --cached
git commit -m "type(scope): concise description"

If core.fsmonitor makes a changed file appear unstaged, compare the working and index object IDs and disable fsmonitor for the affected command:

git hash-object path/to/file
git rev-parse :path/to/file
git -c core.fsmonitor=false add path/to/file

Do not amend or force-push a commit another person may have based work on without explicit authorization.

Compare the right ranges

# Tip-to-tip difference
git diff main..feature

# Changes introduced since the merge base
git diff main...feature

# Patch-series comparison before and after a rebase
git range-diff old-base..old-tip new-base..new-tip

range-diff compares two commit ranges. Do not use the invalid single-range shorthand found in older copies of this skill.

Mergeability without changing the checkout

Use the repository's independent merge oracle when readiness matters:

git merge-tree --write-tree <base> <head>

Treat the exit status as the merge result: 0 is a clean merge, 1 is a real conflict. --quiet (Git 2.50+) additionally suppresses most output and object creation when the exit status is all that's needed, but isn't available on older Git — omit it rather than assume it exists, or gate it behind a version check. Do not replace this check with a checkout or an untrusted hosted mergeability field.

Undo and recovery

Choose the least destructive operation:

Never present git reset --hard HEAD@{n} as a routine recovery recipe. First inspect the reflog entry and preserve it with a branch:

git reflog
git show <recovered-commit>
git branch recovery/<name> <recovered-commit>