Agentic Commits

A new specification called Agentic Commits v0.1 defines a single `Assisted-by:` footer that records which agent and model produced a git commit, extending Conventional Commits rather than replacing it. The convention is enforced by a git `commit-msg` hook that reads four environment variables — `AGENT_NAME`, `AGENT_VERSION`, `AGENT_MODEL_PROVIDER_SLUG` and `AGENT_MODEL_SLUG` — and writes a trailer such as `Assisted-by: omp 18.18.0 (opencode-go/deepseek-v4.1-flash)`; all four variables must be set or the commit fails, and `ASSISTED_BY=0` opts a single commit out. The project argues `Co-authored-by:` is unsuitable because it is a human authorship trailer requiring a real `Name <email>`, citing anthropics/claude-code issue #1653 where an invented agent address was registered by an unrelated person and mis-attributed commits.

Conventions for commits made with AI agents. v0.1 defines attribution : a small, enforceable convention for recording the agent and model that produced a commit — without an agent-specific extension and without abusing Co-authored-by: . Conventional Commits https://www.conventionalcommits.org/en/v1.0.0/ defines the message shape: <type optional scope : <description , an optional body, and footers that follow git trailer syntax. Agentic Commits is an extension of that specification, not a replacement. It keeps every Conventional Commits rule and adds agent-specific requirements: - one Assisted-by: footer identifying the agent and model; - an environment contract AGENT that fills that footer. Assisted-by is a valid Conventional Commits footer token — footer tokens use - in place of whitespace — so an Agentic Commits message is still a valid Conventional Commits message. Enforcing the Conventional Commits shape stays with existing tooling; this project only adds the attribution layer. Original project: conventionalcommits.org https://www.conventionalcommits.org/ · conventional-commits/conventionalcommits.org https://github.com/conventional-commits/conventionalcommits.org feat: reject duplicate idempotency keys Body as usual. Assisted-by: omp 18.18.0 opencode-go/deepseek-v4.1-flash The trailer is written by a git commit-msg hook, so it works for any agent that exports four environment variables before running git commit . The normative contract is in SPEC.md https://github.com/grushetsky/agentic-commits/blob/main/SPEC.md . - Co-authored-by: is a human authorship trailer. It needs a real Name <email , and GitHub links it to an account. Agents invent addresses for it; at least one such address was registered by an unrelated person and mis-attributed commits claude-code 1653 https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/1653 . - Existing Assisted-by: uses incompatible values: <tool , <tool :<model , <agent /<model , Name <email . - Agent extensions only cover their own agent. A git hook covers all of them, including agents that do not exist yet. Assisted-by: <AGENT NAME <AGENT VERSION <AGENT MODEL PROVIDER SLUG /<AGENT MODEL SLUG | Variable | Example | Grammar | |---|---|---| | AGENT NAME | omp | lowercase dash-case | | AGENT VERSION | 18.18.0 | 0-9A-Za-z 0-9A-Za-z.+- | | AGENT MODEL PROVIDER SLUG | opencode-go | lowercase dash-case | | AGENT MODEL SLUG | deepseek-v4.1-flash | lowercase dash-case; dots allowed in version segments | Rules that matter: - All four variables or none. None means "human commit" and produces no trailer. A partial set is a broken integration and fails the commit. - Values are verified runtime metadata. Do not ask the model to name itself. - One Assisted-by: trailer per commit. Merges, cherry-picks, reverts, and rebases are skipped. - The hook is idempotent: if the message already has an Assisted-by: trailer, it does nothing. - ASSISTED BY=0 opts a single commit out. git clone <this repo agentic-commits cd agentic-commits mise install hk 2.11.1 hk install register the commit-msg hook To adopt it in an existing repository, copy hk.pkl and hooks/ into it or merge the commit-msg hook into your hk.pkl and run hk install . Prefer plain git? The script is a normal commit-msg hook: ln -s ../../hooks/assisted-by-commit-msg .git/hooks/commit-msg Or, with Git ≥ 2.54, install it globally without touching repositories: git config --global hook.assisted-by.event commit-msg git config --global hook.assisted-by.command ~/path/to/assisted-by-commit-msg Export the four variables into the environment of every tool subprocess that can run git , and update them when the model changes: export AGENT NAME=omp export AGENT VERSION=18.18.0 export AGENT MODEL PROVIDER SLUG=opencode-go export AGENT MODEL SLUG=deepseek-v4.1-flash git commit -m "feat: ..." Agents that do not set these variables can still be attributed by an adapter, but the standard itself is the environment contract. Do not add Co-authored-by: for the agent; do not fabricate values the runtime cannot provide. git log -1 --format=%B git log -1 --format='% trailers:key=Assisted-by,valueonly ' SPEC.md normative specification hk.pkl hk commit-msg hook hooks/assisted-by-commit-msg reference hook also usable as a git hook examples/hk-config.pkl user-level hk configuration tests/run.sh hook and hk integration tests Run the tests with ./tests/run.sh . Draft 0.1.0. The trailer key and variable names are stable; the value grammar may still change before 1.0.0. Changes are versioned with SemVer. Prior art and the disagreements between projects Fedora, LLVM, OpenInfra, HyperSpy, the Linux kernel, Kubernetes, Apache are summarized in SPEC.md §12 https://github.com/grushetsky/agentic-commits/blob/main/SPEC.md 12-prior-art .