git-aicommit

A tiny Rust CLI that drafts a commit message from your staged changes using Claude Code (Haiku), then opens git commit with the message pre-filled so you can review, edit, or abort.

How it works

1. Parses standard git commit flags (see Supported flags) to decide what to diff and how to prompt.
2. Checks you're in a git repo and that there's something to commit.
3. For plain and --amend commits, runs git hook run --ignore-missing pre-commit as an early check — if hooks fail, the tool aborts before making any API call. (For -a and pathspec commits the staged index isn't what gets committed, so hooks run at commit time instead.)
4. Feeds the relevant diff to claude -p --model haiku over stdin.
5. Cleans up the response and runs git commit -e -m "<message>" …, inheriting your terminal so $EDITOR opens normally.

Large diffs are truncated at 60KB to keep the prompt sane.

Requirements

• Rust (stable)
• git ≥ 2.36 (for git hook run)
• claude CLI, installed and authenticated (tested with Claude Code 2.x; requires a version that supports --output-format json and --disable-slash-commands)

Install

Homebrew (macOS and Linux):

brew install getkono/tap/git-aicommit

git-aicommit calls the claude CLI (not in Homebrew) and git ≥ 2.36 at runtime — see Requirements. brew info getkono/tap/git-aicommit repeats this.

From crates.io (requires Rust):

cargo install git-aicommit

Pre-built binary — download from the latest release, extract, and copy to a directory on your $PATH:

# Linux/macOS example
tar xzf git-aicommit-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz
mv git-aicommit ~/.local/bin/

Build from source:

cargo build --release
cp target/release/git-aicommit ~/.local/bin/   # or anywhere on $PATH

Naming the binary git-aicommit lets you invoke it as a git subcommand.

Usage

git add -p
git aicommit

Your editor opens with the AI-generated message. Save to commit, or quit with an empty message to abort.

git aicommit aims to be a drop-in for git commit: it understands the common flags and forwards anything else straight through. Pass --model (if you use it) before any git flags; run git aicommit --help for a summary, or git aicommit --version to print the version, build metadata, and binary path.

Supported flags

Shape the diff the AI sees:

git aicommit -a                # include all tracked changes (like `git commit -a`)
git aicommit src/foo.rs        # commit only these paths (working-tree content, like git's --only)
git aicommit -p                # stage hunks interactively first, then summarize what you staged
git aicommit --amend           # regenerate the message from the previous message + combined diff

Steer the AI:

git aicommit -m "call out the perf fix"     # an instruction, NOT a literal message (repeatable)
git aicommit -t .gitmessage                 # make the output follow a template file

Forwarded verbatim to git commit — -e/--edit (on by default), -n/--no-verify, -s/--signoff, -S/--gpg-sign, --author, --date, --allow-empty, --no-edit, and anything else not listed here:

git aicommit --no-verify --signoff

--no-verify serves double duty: it skips the pre-commit pre-check (so no API tokens are spent if you intend to bypass hooks) and passes --no-verify to the final git commit.

Preview without committing:

git aicommit --dry-run         # print the diff + generated message, then exit

Bypass the AI entirely — when the message already comes from elsewhere, git handles the commit directly with no API call:

git aicommit --fixup HEAD~2
git aicommit --squash <commit>
git aicommit -C <commit>       # also -c / -F / --reuse-message / --reedit-message / --file

Use -- to separate paths from flags when a filename could look like a flag:

git aicommit -- --weird-filename

Notes

• The prompt asks for Conventional Commits style (feat:, fix:, etc.), imperative subject ≤72 chars, optional body explaining the why.
• By default the editor opens so you can review before committing; quit with an empty message to abort. --no-edit commits the generated message directly, and --dry-run never commits.
• No API key handling here; auth is delegated entirely to the claude CLI.