commit-and-pr - SKILL.md Agent Skill

name: commit-and-pr description: Creates Arena-conformant commits and pull requests. Enforces DCO sign-off (git commit -s), no AI attribution lines (no Co-Authored-By, no Generated-with-Claude footers), // branch naming, separate new commits rather than --amend when iterating on PR feedback, and main as the default base branch. Use when the user asks to commit, stage changes, push the current branch, open a pull request, make a PR, submit changes, or mark work as ready to merge. disable-model-invocation: true allowed-tools: Bash(git ) Bash(pre-commit ) Bash(gh pr create ) Bash(gh pr view )

Commit and Pull Request

Creates commits and PRs that follow Arena's contributor guidelines.

Commit

Run the pre-commit-check skill (or pre-commit run --all-files on the host — pre-commit is not installed in the container) until the working tree is clean. Do not commit through hook failures.
Stage specific files rather than using git add -A — this avoids accidentally committing dotfiles, credentials, or large untracked artifacts.
Sign off the commit (per CONTRIBUTING.md — Arena currently requires DCO sign-off; the policy is on the books but not yet CI-enforced):
```
git commit -s -m "<subject>"
```
Subject line: imperative mood, ~50 characters, no trailing period.
- Good: Fix attribute access on wrapped env
- Bad: Fixed the attribute access on the wrapped env. (past tense, trailing period)
Body (when needed): blank line after the subject, wrap at 72 chars, explain what and why — not how (the diff shows that).
No AI attribution lines. Do not include Co-Authored-By: Claude..., Generated with Claude Code, or similar footers. The DCO sign-off is the only required trailer.

Use a heredoc for multi-paragraph messages so quoting stays clean:

git commit -s -m "$(cat <<'EOF'
<subject>

<body paragraph 1>

<body paragraph 2>
EOF
)"

Branch

Branch naming: <username>/<type>/<short-description> where <type> is one of feature, fix, docs, refactor, chore, ci, and <short-description> is kebab-case.

Examples: <username>/feature/video-recording, <username>/fix/eval-runner-teardown, <username>/docs/update-readme.

Do not use top-level type prefixes that omit the username (e.g. feature/foo, fix/bar).

Pull request

Push the branch (set upstream on first push):
```
git push -u origin <branch-name>
```

Open the PR against main (the active branch):

gh pr create --base main \
  --title "<short imperative subject>" \
  --body "<see body format below>"

PR title follows the same rules as a commit subject: imperative, ~70 chars max, no trailing period.
PR body follows .github/pull_request_template.md:
```
## Summary
<one-line description of the change, ≤50 chars>

## Detailed description
- <why the change was needed>
- <what was changed>
- <impact / what to watch for>
```
Keep it terse — 2–5 detail bullets total. Agent-generated PR bodies tend toward 5+ sections and 500+ words; resist that. The template's bullet form is the standard.

Iterating on review feedback

When addressing review comments, add new commits. Do not --amend and force-push, because reviewers need to see each round of changes as a discrete commit.

# good
git commit -s -m "Address review: rename foo to bar"
git push

# avoid
git commit --amend
git push --force

The exception: if a single commit is purely a typo fix in your own as-yet-unmerged work and no one has reviewed it, --amend is fine.

Verify

Before declaring the work done:

gh pr view --json title,baseRefName

Confirm:

baseRefName is main.
Title has no trailing period and is in imperative mood.