Gentle AI — Branch & PR Skill

When to Use

Load this skill whenever you need to:

• Create a branch for a new fix or feature
• Open a pull request on Gentleman-Programming/gentle-ai
• Prepare changes for review

Critical Rules

1. Every PR MUST link an approved issue — Closes/Fixes/Resolves #<N> in the PR body, and that issue MUST have status:approved. PRs without this are automatically rejected by CI.
2. Ordinary type:* categorization — CI rejects zero or multiple type labels. Route it through the canonical issue-creation workflow contract: a current direct human instruction binds the exact target/action, target-host capability is verified, and it uses one bounded mutation and target-host readback; otherwise wait without mutation.
3. Protected policy labels — Adding or removing status:approved or size:exception requires verified policy authority from a target-host repository maintainer or repository-authorized approver for the exact target/action, plus authenticated actor target-host viewerPermission MAINTAIN or ADMIN. size:exception additionally requires documented over-budget rationale.
4. 400-line review budget — keep PRs within 400 changed lines (additions + deletions) or document the rationale required for a size:exception label.
5. Automated checks must pass — see the Automated Checks table below.
6. No Co-Authored-By trailers — never add AI attribution to commits.
7. No force-push to main/master — protected branch.

Workflow

1. Confirm the issue has status:approved
   gh issue view <N> --repo Gentleman-Programming/gentle-ai

2. Create a branch from main using the naming convention below

3. Implement changes following specs and design

4. Run checks locally (format + unit + E2E)

5. Commit using Conventional Commits format

6. Open a PR referencing the issue
   → Declare exactly ONE type:* result in the PR body
   → Use the canonical issue-creation workflow contract before any PR-label mutation
   → Fill in the PR body using the template

7. All automated checks must pass before merge

Branch Naming

Branch names must match this pattern:

^(feat|fix|chore|docs|style|refactor|perf|test|build|ci|revert)\/[a-z0-9._-]+$

Rules:

• All lowercase
• Use hyphens, dots, or underscores as separators (no spaces, no uppercase)
• Description must be short and descriptive

PR Body Format

The PR body must follow the template at .github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md. All sections are required unless marked optional.

## 🔗 Linked Issue

Closes #<N>

## 🏷️ PR Type

- [ ] `type:bug` — Bug fix (non-breaking change that fixes an issue)
- [ ] `type:feature` — New feature (non-breaking change that adds functionality)
- [ ] `type:docs` — Documentation only
- [ ] `type:refactor` — Code refactoring (no functional changes)
- [ ] `type:chore` — Build, CI, or tooling changes
- [ ] `type:breaking-change` — Breaking change

## 📝 Summary

<!-- Clear description of what this PR does and why. -->

## 📂 Changes

| File / Area | What Changed |
|-------------|-------------|
| `path/to/file` | Brief description |

## 🧪 Test Plan

**Unit Tests**
\`\`\`bash
go test ./...
\`\`\`

**Go Format**
\`\`\`bash
go run ./internal/gofmtcheck
\`\`\`

**E2E Tests** (Docker required)
\`\`\`bash
cd e2e && ./docker-test.sh
\`\`\`

- [ ] Unit tests pass (`go test ./...`)
- [ ] Go format passes (`go run ./internal/gofmtcheck`)
- [ ] E2E tests pass (`cd e2e && ./docker-test.sh`)
- [ ] Manually tested locally

## ✅ Contributor Checklist

- [ ] PR is linked to an issue with `status:approved`
- [ ] PR stays within 400 changed lines, or the `size:exception` rationale and verified policy authority are documented
- [ ] API read-back confirms exactly one appropriate `type:*` label on this PR
- [ ] Unit tests pass (`go test ./...`)
- [ ] E2E tests pass (`cd e2e && ./docker-test.sh`)
- [ ] I have updated documentation if necessary
- [ ] My commits follow Conventional Commits format
- [ ] My commits do not include `Co-Authored-By` trailers

Automated Checks

These checks run on every PR and all must pass before merge:

Conventional Commits

Commit messages must match this pattern:

^(build|chore|ci|docs|feat|fix|perf|refactor|revert|style|test)(\([a-z0-9\._-]+\))?!?: .+

Format

<type>(<optional-scope>)!: <description>

[optional body]

[optional footer]

Allowed Types

Breaking Changes

Add ! after the type/scope:

feat(cli)!: rename --config flag to --config-file

BREAKING CHANGE: the --config flag has been renamed to --config-file.

Breaking changes map to type:breaking-change label.

Examples

feat(tui): add progress bar to installation steps
fix(agent): correct Claude Code detection on macOS
docs: update contributing guide
chore(deps): bump bubbletea to v0.26
refactor(pipeline): extract step executor
style: fix linter warnings in catalog package
perf(system): cache OS detection result
test(installer): add coverage for catalog step execution
build: update goreleaser config for arm64
ci: split unit and e2e test jobs
revert: undo model picker redesign
feat(cli)!: change default config path

Commands

Setup

# Confirm issue is approved before starting
gh issue view <N> --repo Gentleman-Programming/gentle-ai

# Create branch
git checkout main && git pull
git checkout -b fix/<short-description>

Testing Locally

# Unit tests
go test ./...

# Go format
go run ./internal/gofmtcheck

# Unit tests — specific package
go test ./internal/tui/...

# Unit tests — verbose
go test -v ./...

# E2E tests (Docker must be running)
cd e2e && ./docker-test.sh

Open a PR

gh pr create \
  --repo Gentleman-Programming/gentle-ai \
  --title "fix(agent): correct Claude Code detection on Linux" \
  --body "$(cat <<'EOF'
## 🔗 Linked Issue

Closes #42

## 🏷️ PR Type

- [x] \`type:bug\` — Bug fix (non-breaking change that fixes an issue)

## 📝 Summary

Fixes Claude Code binary detection failing on Linux when HOME is not set.

## 📂 Changes

| File / Area | What Changed |
|-------------|-------------|
| \`internal/agents/claude.go\` | Added HOME env var fallback |

## 🧪 Test Plan

- [x] Unit tests pass (\`go test ./...\`)
- [x] E2E tests pass (\`cd e2e && ./docker-test.sh\`)
- [x] Manually tested locally

## ✅ Contributor Checklist

- [x] PR is linked to an issue with \`status:approved\`
- [x] PR stays within 400 changed lines, or the \`size:exception\` rationale and verified policy authority are documented
- [x] API read-back confirms exactly one appropriate \`type:*\` label on this PR
- [x] Unit tests pass (\`go test ./...\`)
- [x] E2E tests pass (\`cd e2e && ./docker-test.sh\`)
- [x] I have updated documentation if necessary
- [x] My commits follow Conventional Commits format
- [x] My commits do not include \`Co-Authored-By\` trailers
EOF
)"

Check PR Status

gh pr checks --repo Gentleman-Programming/gentle-ai <PR-number>
gh pr view --repo Gentleman-Programming/gentle-ai <PR-number>