git-reword

Reword git commit messages without shell-quoting headaches.

git-reword performs a non-interactive git rebase -i under the hood, automatically changing pick to edit for the target commits, amending each with the new message, and continuing the rebase. Messages are passed via temp files, so special characters like quotes, backticks, $variables, and unicode all work reliably.

Why

Rewriting commit messages during an interactive rebase is tedious and error-prone, especially when messages contain shell metacharacters. git-reword makes it a single command — ideal for scripting, CI, and AI-assisted workflows.

Installation

Go install

go install github.com/ssoriche/git-reword/cmd/git-reword@latest

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/ssoriche/git-reword.git
cd git-reword
devbox shell   # or use system Go 1.24+
make install

Usage

Reword a single commit:

git reword abc123 "feat: new commit message"

Reword multiple commits at once:

git reword abc123 "first message" def456 "second message"

Read commit mappings from a JSON file:

git reword --from messages.json

Read from stdin:

echo '{"abc123":"fix: corrected typo"}' | git reword --from -

Preview what would happen without modifying the repo:

git reword --dry-run abc123 "new message"

JSON format

The --from flag accepts a JSON object mapping commit hashes (short or full) to new messages:

{
    "abc1234": "feat: add user authentication",
    "def5678": "fix: handle nil pointer in parser\n\nThe parser now checks for nil before dereferencing."
}

How it works

1. Resolves all input hashes to full SHA-1s
2. Finds the earliest target commit and determines the rebase base (its parent)
3. Starts git rebase -i with a custom GIT_SEQUENCE_EDITOR that swaps pick → edit for target commits
4. At each edit stop, writes the new message to a temp file and runs git commit --amend -F <file>
5. Continues the rebase until all commits are reworded

If anything goes wrong mid-rebase, git-reword aborts the rebase and reports the error.

Claude Code skill

You can use git-reword as a Claude Code slash command for AI-assisted commit rewriting. Save the following as ~/.claude/commands/reword-commits.md (global) or .claude/commands/reword-commits.md (per-project):

---
allowed-tools: Bash(git-reword:*), Bash(git log:*), Bash(git reword:*), Bash(go run:*)
---

Help me reword commits on my current branch.

1. Run `git log --oneline -20` to show recent commits
2. Ask me which commits to reword and what the new messages should be
3. Build a JSON object mapping each commit hash to its new message
4. Run `git-reword --from -` with the JSON piped to stdin

If `git-reword` is not installed, fall back to:
```
go run github.com/ssoriche/git-reword/cmd/git-reword@latest --from -
```

Then invoke it in Claude Code with /reword-commits.

License

MIT