Commit candidate

A commit candidate is the exact patch that will enter the commit. A coherent change has one task or issue as its reason for existing.

Guardrails

Inspect candidate changes for credentials, private keys, tokens, and local secret files. STOP and ask what to do without repeating the secret value.
Preserve changes outside the current task. Ask before changing an existing staged change that is outside the task boundary.
Keep normal Git hooks enabled.
Do not use sub-agents.

Establish the Git state. Inspect the branch, active Git operation, staged and unstaged changes, untracked files, and the task or issue boundary. Ask when required facts are unclear.

Done when: the request mode, task boundary, and Git state are understood.
Build the commit candidate. Stage only changes that directly belong to the task or issue. Preserve unrelated staged changes. If the task forms one coherent change, prepare one candidate. Ask when grouping is unclear. If there is no suitable candidate, report it and stop.