Turn the working tree into small, well-formed commits: read what changed, stage one concern at a time by name, and write each message in Conventional Commits form. Review the staged diff before every commit.

Read the tree

Run git status and git diff to see everything uncommitted. A clean tree means nothing to do — say so and stop. Otherwise group the changes by concern, where each distinct purpose is its own commit.

Stage one concern

Stage that concern's files by name with git add <path> …, not git add -A or git add ., so unrelated edits and scratch files stay out. Leave the other concerns unstaged for their own commits.

Write the message

Conventional Commits: <type>(<scope>): <subject>. The type is one of feat, fix, docs, style, refactor, perf, test, build, ci, chore, or revert — pick the one the change earns. The (<scope>) is optional; add it only when it sharpens the subject. Subject in the imperative, ≤50 characters. Add a body, wrapped at 72, only when the diff doesn't explain its own why.

Breaking an API? Mark it: ! before the colon (feat!:), or a BREAKING CHANGE: <what broke> footer — the mark SemVer and changelog tools read for a major bump.

Commit and loop

Review the staged diff one more time, then commit. Changes still uncommitted? Back to Stage one concern for the next.