git-reword

📝 AI-powered Git commit message rewriter.

Features

• 📚 Batch Rewording: Reword multiple commits at once
• 🤖 AI-Powered: Generate professional commit messages using AI
• 🔌 Multi-Provider: Support OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, MiniMax, and more
• 💬 Interactive UI: Review and accept/skip/regenerate suggestions
• 🎯 Flexible Targeting: Support --last, --since, range, and single commit
• 🤖 Agent Friendly: First-class integration for AI agents with --format jsonl

Comparison

Tool	Limitation
Most AI commit message tools (e.g., aicommits, opencommit)	Only handles the most recent commit
AI coding assistants (Claude Code, etc.)	Inconvenient for processing batches of commits in conversation
Manual rebase	Tedious for multiple commits

Getting Started

Installation

npm i -g git-reword
# or
bun add -g git-reword

Quick Start

# Reword the last commit (default)
git-reword

# Reword the last N commits
git-reword --last 5

# Reword commits from a specific ref
git-reword --since abc1234

# Reword commits in range
git-reword HEAD~3..HEAD

# Reword a specific commit
git-reword abc1234

# Generate commit message for staged changes
git-reword --staged

Usage

Reword Commits

Interactive Mode

Interactive UI displays commits with AI-generated suggestions. For each commit, you can:

• Accept: Use AI-generated message
• Skip: Keep original message
• Regenerate: Request new AI message
• Abort: Cancel entire operation

# Interactive mode (default)
git-reword --last 3

# Skip confirmation - apply all changes automatically
git-reword --yes --last 3

AI Commit (Staged Changes)

Generate a commit message for staged changes:

# Stage your changes first
git add .

# Generate and apply commit message
git-reword --staged

# Output:
# Suggested message:
# feat(api): add user authentication middleware
#
# Apply? [y/n]
# y: git commit with suggested message
# n: cancel, no commit

Options

Option	Description
--last <n>	Reword the last N commits
--since <ref>	Reword commits from ref's next commit to HEAD
--dry-run	Preview without executing rebase
--yes, -y	Skip confirmation, apply all changes
--skip-check, -k	Skip uncommitted changes check (debugging)
--staged	Generate commit message for staged changes
--format <fmt>	Output format: text (default) or jsonl (AI agent)
--apply, -a	Apply pre-confirmed rewrites from stdin (skip AI generation)

Preview Mode

Preview changes without executing the rebase:

git-reword --dry-run --last 3

# Output:
# Commit abc123:
#   OLD: "fix: bug"
#   NEW: "fix(auth): resolve login timeout issue"
# ---
# Commit def456:
#   OLD: "update"
#   NEW: "feat(api): add rate limiting middleware"

Two-Phase Execution

The tool uses a two-phase approach for safe operation:

1. Confirmation Phase: Generate AI messages, display each for your review
2. Execution Phase: Once confirmed, execute the rebase once

# Phase 1: Confirmation (no rebase yet)
git-reword --last 3
# → Show commit-1: old → new? [y/n/q]
# → Show commit-2: old → new? [y/n/q]
# → Show commit-3: old → new? [y/n/q]
# All confirmed!

# Phase 2: Execute rebase (all at once)
# → Running: git rebase -i --exec "..."
# → Done. 3/3 commits rewrote

With --yes flag, it skips confirmation and applies AI messages to all commits.

Configuration

Create ~/.git-rewordrc:

provider=anthropic
model=claude-sonnet-4-20250514
apiKey=your-api-key

Supported Providers

Provider	Default Model
openai	gpt-5-mini
anthropic	claude-haiku-4-5
google	gemini-2.5-flash

Provider Configuration Examples

OpenAI

provider=openai
model=gpt-5-mini
apiKey=sk-...

Anthropic

provider=anthropic
model=claude-haiku-4-5
apiKey=sk-ant-...

Google

provider=google
model=gemini-2.5-flash
apiKey=AIza...

MiniMax

provider=anthropic
model=MiniMax-M2.5
baseUrl=https://api.minimax.io/anthropic/v1
apiKey=sk-...

MiniMax (CN)

provider=anthropic
model=MiniMax-M2.5
baseUrl=https://api.minimaxi.com/anthropic/v1
apiKey=sk-...

Advanced

GPG Signing

When rewording GPG-signed commits:

• Signed commits remain signed: git commit --amend without -S preserves the signature
• Unsigned commits remain unsigned: No new signature is added

If you use GPG-signed commits and git-reword prompts for passphrase during rebase:

1. Extend GPG agent cache lifetime:

   echo "default-cache-ttl 86400" >> ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf
   echo "max-cache-ttl 604800" >> ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf
   gpgconf --reload gpg-agent

2. Refresh cache before running git-reword:

   git commit --amend --no-edit -S

Verify signatures after reword:

git log --show-signature -5

Agent Skill Integration

The CLI outputs structured data for easy parsing by AI agents:

# Text mode (default) - human-readable
git-reword --last 5
# Output:
# ✓ Commit abc123 rewrote
# ✓ Commit def456 rewrote
# Done. 2/2 commits rewrote

# JSONL mode - machine-readable
git-reword --format jsonl --last 5
# Output:
# {"commit":"abc123...","shortCommit":"abc1234","originalMessage":"fix bug","newMessage":"fix: resolve authentication timeout"}
# {"commit":"def456...","shortCommit":"def4567","originalMessage":"add feat","newMessage":"feat(api): add user authentication"}

Branch Constraint

All reword operations target commits on the current branch only. This tool uses git rebase internally, which replays commits onto the current branch.

# ✅ Correct: operate on current branch
git checkout feature-a
git-reword --last 3

# ✅ Correct: checkout target branch first
git checkout feature-b
git-reword --since abc1234

Pre-flight Checks

Before rewording commits (not --staged):

1. No uncommitted changes: Ensures safe rebase operation
2. Fast-forward possible: Verifies commits haven't been rebased or amended

Use --skip-check to bypass these checks (for debugging).

Conflict Handling

Rewording commits only modifies commit messages, not code content—so conflicts should not occur. If a conflict somehow happens (rare), the tool will:

1. Detect the conflict via rebase exit code
2. Abort the rebase automatically
3. Show clear error with the commit hash
4. Provide recovery instructions

# Recovery options:
# Option 1: Cancel the entire operation
git rebase --abort

# Option 2: Resolve manually, then continue
# 1. git status     # see conflicted files
# 2. git diff       # understand the conflict
# 3. Edit files to resolve
# 4. git add <resolved-files>
# 5. git rebase --continue

AI Error Handling

• Empty Response: If AI returns empty or invalid message, falls back to original message
• Rate Limiting: Automatic retry with exponential backoff (3 retries max: 1s, 2s, 4s)

Execution Scope

The tool only operates in the current Git repository. It does not support:

• Multi-repo operations
• Cross-path operations
• Project config vs user config distinction

Reference

Exit Codes

Code	Meaning
0	Success: all commits rewrote
1	Error: invalid arguments, config error, git error
2	User interrupt: aborted with q or Ctrl+C
3	Partial: some commits rewrote, some skipped

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