cmt

cmt is a Claude Code skill that generates Conventional Commit messages from your staged Git changes.

It reads your diff, matches the commit style already established in the repository's git log, and hands you a ready-to-paste message — so your history stays clear and consistent without the busywork.

What it does

• Conventional Commits — generates a <type>(<scope>): <description> title, plus an optional body when there's something non-obvious worth recording.
• Matches your repo's style — learns scope vocabulary and conventions from recent git log history.
• Staged-first — describes staged changes when present, otherwise falls back to unstaged and untracked files.
• Never commits for you — outputs the message only and offers a ready-to-run git commit command. You stay in control.
• Optional hint — steer the type, scope, or framing with a free-text argument.

Requirements

• Claude Code
• Git

No API key, build step, or configuration file required — the skill runs inside Claude Code.

Installation

cmt runs as a Claude Code skill — install it by cloning this repository into a skills directory.

Personal (recommended) — available in every project on your machine:

git clone https://github.com/tab/cmt.git ~/.claude/skills/cmt

Project — scoped to the current repository only:

git clone https://github.com/tab/cmt.git .claude/skills/cmt

The skill lives in SKILL.md at the repository root, so cloning into a folder named cmt inside a skills directory is all Claude Code needs to discover it. Start a new Claude Code session and /cmt will be available.

Updating

Run git pull in the directory you cloned into:

git -C ~/.claude/skills/cmt pull

Usage

Stage the changes you want to commit:

git add .

Then invoke the skill in Claude Code:

/cmt

You'll get a Conventional Commits message in a copy-pasteable block, followed by a ready-to-run commit command. Review it, then run the command yourself if you're happy.

Hint

Pass an optional free-text hint to steer the result — a type, a scope, or a framing:

/cmt this is a fix, not a feature
/cmt scope: api

The hint is used as written; everything else is inferred from the diff.

Conventions

The generated message follows the Conventional Commits specification and Tim Pope's 50/72 rule for the subject line. Type is chosen by the intent of the change (feat, fix, chore, refactor, docs, test, perf, build, ci, style, revert), and a scope is always included. See SKILL.md for the full rule set.

License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for more information.

Acknowledgements

• Conventional Commits for the commit message specification.