Rename Git Commits

User preferences (MUST follow)

• Execute immediately when user says "popraw", "zrób", "dodaj" — NO verbose explanations
• Be fully autonomous — user trusts the agent to handle the full workflow
• Keep output minimal — short confirmations, emoji status (✅/❌/⚠️), no long summaries unless asked
• When something fails, say what failed and try an alternative — don't ask "what should I do?"

When to use

• Fix typo in commit message
• Change lowercase to capitalized ("update" → "Update")
• Add missing context
• Remove sensitive info

Safety rules

⚠️ Never rewrite commits that are pushed and cloned by others — breaks their history.

If commits are already on GitHub and others may have them:

• ✅ Create a new commit with fix
• ❌ Don't force push shared branches

Method 1: Last commit (before push)

git commit --amend -m "Update: proper capitalization"

Method 2: Multiple commits (before push, no PTY needed)

Works on Windows/MSYS without interactive editor:

# 1. Create backup branch
git branch backup-main

# 2. Reset to commit BEFORE the ones you want to change
git reset --hard COMMIT_BEFORE_TARGET

# 3. Cherry-pick EACH commit from reset point to branch tip
#    ⚠️ You MUST cherry-pick ALL commits, not just the ones you want to rename!
#    Commits you don't rename: cherry-pick + commit with original message
#    Commits you rename: cherry-pick + commit with new message
git cherry-pick --no-commit TARGET_COMMIT
git commit -m "Fix: new correct message"

git cherry-pick --no-commit NEXT_COMMIT
git commit -m "Original message"  # keep as-is

# ... continue for EVERY remaining commit to branch tip

# 5. Verify count matches original — HARD CHECK before push
ORIGINAL=$(git log --oneline backup-main | wc -l)
CURRENT=$(git log --oneline | wc -l)
if [ "$ORIGINAL" -ne "$CURRENT" ]; then
    echo "❌ FATAL: Commit count mismatch (original=$ORIGINAL, current=$CURRENT)"
    echo "DO NOT PUSH. You lost commits. Restore from backup and retry."
    git reset --hard backup-main
    exit 1
fi
echo "✅ Commit count matches ($CURRENT)"

# 6. If OK, force push
git push --force-with-lease origin main

⚠️ CRITICAL: You must cherry-pick ALL commits from the reset point to the branch tip. Cherry-picking only the target commits loses everything after them. See references/cherry-pitfalls.md for details.

Example — fix last 2 commits:

git branch backup
git reset --hard HEAD~2
git cherry-pick --no-commit HEAD@{2}
git commit -m "Update openplanet-plugin-dev to v2.1.0 with merged skills and quirks"
git cherry-pick --no-commit HEAD@{1}
git commit -m "Update openplanet-plugin-dev to v2.2.0"
git push --force-with-lease origin main

Method 2b: Already pushed — cherry-pick to new branch (force push required)

When commits are already on GitHub and you need to rewrite messages:

# 1. Create backup
git branch backup-main

# 2. Create new branch from backup
git checkout -b rewritten backup-main

# 3. Reset to commit BEFORE the ones to change
git reset --hard COMMIT_BEFORE_TARGET

# 4. Cherry-pick each commit with new message
git cherry-pick --no-commit OLD_SHA_1
git commit -m "New plain English message"

git cherry-pick --no-commit OLD_SHA_2
git commit -m "Another plain English message"

# 5. Cherry-pick remaining commits (unchanged)
git cherry-pick --no-commit OLD_SHA_3
git commit -m "$(git log -1 --format='%s' OLD_SHA_3)"

# 6. Verify
git log --oneline -10

# 7. Force push (rewrites history!)
git push --force-with-lease origin rewritten:main

⚠️ WARNING: This rewrites history. Anyone who cloned the repo will have conflicts. Only do this on personal repos with no collaborators.

Commit Message Standard

⚠️ SUPERSEDED (2026-07 session): the OLD rule "plain English, no conventional prefixes, Fix with a space" is NO LONGER the user's preference. The user now wants capitalized conventional prefixes WITH a colon, and a capital letter right after the colon. This is the current standard.

Current rules (user-confirmed 2026-07):

• Prefix is a capitalized conventional type + colon: Feature:, UI:, Fix:, Docs:, Chore:, Brand:
• The FIRST letter of the description (right after the colon + space) is capitalized too: Fix: Real vertical gaps..., Docs: Sync TODO board...
• Map lowercase conventional prefixes onto the capitalized form: feat:/deploy: → Feature:, ui: → UI:, fix: → Fix:, docs: → Docs:, chore: → Chore:, brand: → Brand:
• Revert "..." commits are LEFT UNTOUCHED (fidelity to the quoted original message — do not capitalize inside the quotes).
• Commits with NO prefix keep their existing style (usually already capitalized sentence, e.g. Switch default dev port from 8000 to 8698).
• Author/committer should read tomekdot (set in committer config), not the legacy Tomasz Kaczak identity — see Method 5 / date-author recipe.

Bulk-normalize prefixes (the common case) with filter-branch --msg-filter

• sed — see Method 6 and references/bulk-msg-rewrite.md. Do NOT hand-edit each commit for a repo-wide rename.

Examples (current):

• ✅ Feature: Simple Render blueprint (web+db, no Celery/Redis) for shared instance
• ✅ UI: Add breathing room to cards, action bar, and sidebar
• ✅ Fix: Real vertical gaps in listening-history list
• ✅ Docs: Sync TODO board (UI-01/02/TRK-01 done, add Phase D.1 roadmap)
• ✅ Revert "docs: fix overclaim in Core Features..." (untouched)
• ❌ feat: add feature — lowercase prefix (should be Feature:)
• ❌ ui: add breathing room — lowercase prefix (should be UI:)
• ❌ Fix: real vertical gaps — lowercase after colon (should be Fix: Real...)
• ❌ update skill — lowercase first letter
• ❌ Add pursuit-maps skill: 249 maps — colon after skill name

Method 5: Rewrite commit DATE and/or AUTHOR (filter-branch)

Use when you must change author/committer name, email, or date of a subset of commits (e.g. old commits carry a different git identity, or you want to redate a batch). Not message text — for that use Methods 2/4. Full working recipe + pitfalls (incl. the --force-with-lease "stale info" trap) in references/filter-branch-date-author.md.

git branch "backup-dates-$(date +%Y%m%d)"          # 0. backup
git stash push -u -m "wip-before-date-rewrite"      # 1. clean tree (REQUIRED)
export FILTER_BRANCH_SQUELCH_WARNING=1
git filter-branch -f --env-filter '
  ad=$(git log -1 --format=%ad --date=short "$GIT_COMMIT")
  case "$ad" in
    2025-*)                                        # condition: only these
      export GIT_AUTHOR_NAME="tomekdot"
      export GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL="tomaszkaczak@protonmail.com"
      export GIT_COMMITTER_NAME="tomekdot"
      export GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL="tomaszkaczak@protonmail.com"
      export GIT_AUTHOR_DATE="2026-07-17T12:00:00 +0200"
      export GIT_COMMITTER_DATE="2026-07-17T12:00:00 +0200"
      ;;
  esac
' -- --all
git stash pop                                        # restore WIP
git fetch origin                                     # REQUIRED before lease (P2)
git push --force-with-lease origin main              # history rewritten

⚠️ Changing ANY date/name at the root rewrites the ENTIRE branch's hashes → force-push mandatory, collaborators must re-pull/re-clone.

Method 6: Bulk rewrite of MESSAGE TEXT (filter-branch --msg-filter)

When the user wants a repo-wide message normalization (e.g. lowercase conventional prefixes feat:/ui:/fix: → capitalized Feature:/UI:/Fix:, AND a capital letter after the colon), do it with filter-branch --msg-filter + sed — NOT by hand-editing each commit. Full recipe + the background-timeout and fetch-before-lease traps in references/bulk-msg-rewrite.md.

git branch "backup-msg-$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M)"      # 0. backup
git stash push -u -m "wip-before-msg-rewrite"    # 1. clean tree (REQUIRED)
export FILTER_BRANCH_SQUELCH_WARNING=1
# Run in background if repo is large (131+ commits exceeds the 60s fg limit):
git filter-branch -f --msg-filter '
  sed -E "
    s/^fix:/Fix:/;  s/^docs:/Docs:/;  s/^chore:/Chore:/;  s/^brand:/Brand:/;
    s/^ui:/UI:/;    s/^feat:/Feature:/;  s/^deploy:/Feature:/;
    s/^(Fix: )([a-z])/\1\u\2/;   s/^(Docs: )([a-z])/\1\u\2/;
    s/^(Chore: )([a-z])/\1\u\2/; s/^(Brand: )([a-z])/\1\u\2/;
    s/^(UI: )([a-z])/\1\u\2/;    s/^(Feature: )([a-z])/\1\u\2/
  "
' -- --all
git stash pop                                     # restore WIP
git fetch origin                                  # REQUIRED before lease
git push --force-with-lease origin main           # history rewritten

⚠️ --msg-filter changes hashes of EVERY commit git walks (so -- --all rewrites all branches + the origin/main ref too). Force-push is mandatory. ⚠️ GNU sed on MSYS does support \u\2 (capitalize the matched group) — this works, do not avoid it. ⚠️ Revert "..." messages are intentionally left untouched (the inner quote is a literal reference to the reverted commit).

Method 3: Already pushed — create follow-up commit (safest)

When force push is too risky, add a note:

git commit --allow-empty -m "Update: correct previous commit messages (capitalization)"
git push origin main

Method 4: Single older commit (before push)

Using interactive rebase with non-interactive editor:

# Set non-interactive editor
GIT_SEQUENCE_EDITOR="sed -i 's/^pick/reword/'" git rebase -i COMMIT_HASH^

# Then provide new message via EDITOR
EDITOR="sed -i '1s/.*/Update: new message/'" git rebase --continue

Note: This may not work on all MSYS setups. Method 2 (cherry-pick) is more reliable.

Library Management

See references/skill-library-management.md for:

• README structure (group by category, not flat list)
• Platform skills vs own skills distinction
• Git rewrite safety checklist
• Commit message format standard

Pitfalls

See references/cherry-pitfalls.md for detailed pitfalls including:

• Cherry-pick only target commits loses everything after them
• sed/gsub anchoring when old string is a prefix of new string
• filter-branch SHA prefix vs message content matching
• Windows/MSYS performance considerations
• git filter-branch DOES work on Windows/MSYS for date/author rewrites — the "unreliable on Windows" note is FALSE; see references/filter-branch-date-author.md
• Date/author rewrite via filter-branch: full recipe + PITFALLS (stash -u, fetch-before-lease) in references/filter-branch-date-author.md
• Bulk MESSAGE rewrite via filter-branch --msg-filter: full recipe + pitfalls (background timeout, force-with-lease "stale info", date-vs-author correction) in references/bulk-msg-rewrite.md
• GIT_SEQUENCE_EDITOR with sed may silently fail on MSYS
• git rebase -i --exec with commit --amend doesn't work
• Always copy skills from AppData to repo BEFORE rewriting history
• Verify commit count BEFORE force push
• Platform skills (webhook-subscriptions etc.) are NOT yours
• Cascading conflicts when cherry-pick many commits

Windows/MSYS without PTY

When working on Windows with git-bash/MSYS (no PTY available):

• git rebase -i opens an interactive editor that cannot be used
• GIT_SEQUENCE_EDITOR with sed may work for simple cases but breaks on merge conflicts
• Cherry-pick method (Method 2b) works but requires handling conflicts with git checkout --theirs <file>
• When cherry-picking commits that modify the same files: git cherry-pick --no-commit && git checkout --theirs . && git add -A && git commit
• For commits already on GitHub that can't be cleanly cherry-picked, Method 3 (follow-up commit) is the safest fallback

Remember

• ✅ Feature: Simple Render blueprint (web+db, no Celery/Redis) for shared instance
• ✅ UI: Add breathing room to cards, action bar, and sidebar
• ✅ Fix: Real vertical gaps in listening-history list
• ✅ Docs: Sync TODO board (UI-01/02/TRK-01 done, add Phase D.1 roadmap)
• ❌ feat: add feature — lowercase prefix (should be Feature:)
• ❌ Fix: real vertical gaps — lowercase after colon (should be Fix: Real...)
• Repo-wide message pass → use Method 6 (filter-branch --msg-filter), not hand-editing each commit; see references/bulk-msg-rewrite.md.
• After push: either amend + force-push (dangerous on shared branches) OR new empty commit (safe)

⚠️ Git Repository Lost (.git deleted)

If .git folder is accidentally deleted (e.g. by AI Studio or IDE):

git init
git remote add origin https://github.com/USER/REPO.git
git add -A
git commit -m "Reinit after .git loss"
git branch -m master main  # if branch is master instead of main
git push origin main --force

When to use: git status returns "not a git repository", or git log fails with "Not a valid object name HEAD".

Note: Force push rewrites remote history. Only use when local files are the correct/complete version (e.g. after AI Studio deletes .git but source files are intact).