Git Rules | BeforeMerge

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v1.0.0

Reviews git practices — commit message quality, branch naming, merge strategy, and secret prevention. Poor git hygiene creates archaeology problems: future developers cannot understand why changes were made, and leaked secrets require expensive credential rotation.

12 rules

3 categories

Security(1)

Never Commit Secrets

Never commit API keys, passwords, tokens, or credentials to version control. Once a secret is in git history, it is permanently exposed — even deleting the file doesn't remove it from history, and anyone who cloned the repo has a copy forever.

GitSecretssecurity

Quality(7)

Never Commit Build Artifacts or Dependencies

Keep generated output and installed dependencies out of version control by listing them in .gitignore.

Never Force-Push Shared or Protected Branches

Avoid force-pushing branches others build on; rewriting shared history destroys collaborators' work.

Reference the Issue or Ticket

Link commits and pull requests to their tracking issue or ticket so changes stay traceable to their why.

Architecture(4)

Keep Branches Short-Lived and Updated

Keep feature branches small and short-lived, rebasing or merging from the base branch often to avoid drift and painful conflicts.

Open Small, Reviewable Pull Requests

Scope each pull request to one logical change so reviewers can understand it quickly and catch defects.

Keep History Linear with Squash or Rebase

Prefer squash or rebase merges (per team policy) to keep main history linear and easy to read, bisect, and revert.

Automate Git checks on every PR

BeforeMerge scans your pull requests against all 12 Git rules automatically. Get actionable feedback before code ships.

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Don't Commit Large Binaries — Use Git LFS

Keep large binary assets out of normal Git history; track them with Git LFS to avoid permanently bloating clones.

MEDIUM

Write Descriptive Commit Messages

Write commit messages that explain WHY a change was made, not just WHAT changed. "fix bug" tells future-you nothing — "fix: prevent duplicate form submission on slow connections" tells you the context, the cause, and the scope without reading any code.

GitqualityCommits

Keep Commits Atomic

Each commit should contain exactly one logical change. Commits that mix refactoring, bug fixes, and features together make git bisect useless, code review painful, and reverting a single change impossible without losing everything else in the commit.

GitqualityCommits

Use Conventional Commits Format

Structure commit messages as type(scope): subject so history is machine-readable and changelogs/versioning can be automated.

Protect Main with Required Reviews and CI

Enforce branch protection on main: require pull-request review and passing CI before any merge.

MEDIUM

Features Explore

Rules Skills Knowledge Prompts

Pricing Blog Contributors Install Guide

Git Workflow Review

A review skill for git history quality and repository hygiene.

What it covers

Commit messages — conventional commit format, imperative mood, linking to issues, meaningful descriptions
Branch strategy — naming conventions, short-lived feature branches, rebase vs. merge policies
Secret prevention — .gitignore coverage, pre-commit hooks for secret scanning, no credentials in history
PR discipline — atomic PRs with single concerns, meaningful PR descriptions, draft PR usage
History cleanliness — interactive rebase before merge, squash policy, avoiding merge commits in feature branches

When to use

Run this when establishing team git conventions, onboarding new contributors, or auditing repository history for secret leaks and compliance.