Commitbot

A Rust-powered CLI that writes meaningful, structured Git commit messages using LLMs.

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Commitbot analyzes your staged Git changes and helps you craft clear, consistent commit messages that describe why changes were made — not just what changed.

It can summarize diffs, ask you how each file relates to the purpose of the commit, and produce structured, readable messages your teammates (and future self) will thank you for.

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Features

• 🧩 Interactive “ask” mode – Classify each file as main, supporting, or consequential.
• ⚡ Quick mode – Instantly summarize staged diffs into a commit message.
• 🧠 LLM-powered – Uses OpenAI’s GPT models to generate concise and structured messages.
• 🔧 Configurable – Choose models, tweak behavior, and set defaults in a config file.
• 🧾 Pull request summaries – Generate clean, readable PR descriptions from your commit history.

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Installation

You’ll need an OpenAI API key set as an environment variable:

export OPENAI_API_KEY="sk-..."

Homebrew

brew tap mikegarde/tap
brew install commitbot

Download a Prebuilt Binary

1. Visit the latest release.
2. Download the binary for your platform.
3. Make it executable and move it into your PATH:

chmod +x commitbot
sudo mv commitbot /usr/local/bin/
commitbot --version

Rust/Cargo

Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/MikeGarde/commitbot.git
cd commitbot
cargo install --path . --force

Install Directly from Git

cargo install --git https://github.com/MikeGarde/commitbot --force

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Usage

Simple Mode

Analyze all staged changes and generate a commit message in one step:

commitbot

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Interactive Mode

Walk through each staged file and describe how it relates to the main purpose of the commit:

commitbot --ask

For each file, select:

1) Main purpose
2) Supporting change
3) Consequence / ripple
4) Ignore

After all files are classified, Commitbot summarizes and generates the full commit message.

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Pull Request Summaries

Generate high-level PR descriptions by summarizing commit messages instead of diffs:

commitbot pr develop
commitbot pr develop feat/ISSUE-201-registration

Commitbot will:

• Collect all commits between the base (develop or main) and the feature branch.
• Group commits referencing PR numbers (e.g. #123).
• Summarize them into a clear, cohesive description.

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Configuration

Commitbot looks for a configuration file at: ~/.config/commitbot.toml. These settings are available to CLI flags, environment variables, or even per-project config.

Example:

model = "gpt-4o-mini"

["mikegarde/commitbot"]
model = "gpt-5-nano"

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Roadmap

• Support for local/offline LLMs (Ollama, LM Studio).
• Model auto-detection and fallback.
• Configurable commit message templates.
• Integration with GitHub Actions or CI pipelines.

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License

GPL-3.0-or-later

See LICENSE for details.

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Commitbot is under active development — features and output quality will evolve with each release.