Commit checklist

Use before every commit. Full rules: commit-messages.md.

Title

• Format: [WIP: ]<type>[<scope>][!]: <Subject>
• Allowed type includes adr for architectural decisions
• ADR commits: one ADR file only, with index/link updates
• Subject: imperative, uppercase after :, no trailing period
• Title ≤ 72 characters

Body and footers

• Blank line between title and body (if body present)
• Body lines ≤ 100 characters
• If title has !, include BREAKING CHANGE: footer
• At most one AI: footer (yes, no, mixed)
• No WIP: on develop, master, release/*, or hotfix/*

Author and hooks

• Author is the human operator (not a bot-only author)
• pre-commit install and pre-commit install --hook-type commit-msg have been run
• Staged / changed files pass pre-commit (default day-to-day scope)
• Full-tree pre-commit run --all-files used only when the team deliberately chose repository-wide cleanup
• If a commit fails a hook, fix and create a new commit (do not amend failed hook runs)

See workflow/pre-commit-policy.md.

A2C pre-commit hooks

• .pre-commit-config.yaml includes a2c-pre-commit-hooks pinned by tag with check-changelog
• CHANGELOG.md is staged when other release-relevant files are staged

See workflow/a2c-pre-commit-hooks.md.

Changelog

• Release-relevant work has a bullet under CHANGELOG.md ## [Unreleased]
• Changelog entries are user-facing — not raw commit dumps
• Trivial internal-only changes correctly omitted

See workflow/changelog-policy.md.

Release (maintainers)

• develop pipeline is green before bump
• [Unreleased] reflects the intended release notes
• python scripts/bump_release.py (or --dry-run first) with confirmed bump level
• Fast-forward master from develop before tagging
• Tag vX.Y.Z pushed from master; tag pipeline release:verify passes

See workflow/ci-release-flow.md and release-pipeline.md.

Before push

• On develop (not direct commits to master for day-to-day work)
• Commit message will pass gitlint (commit-msg hook)
• CI green on develop before fast-forwarding master