Draft pr

Draft PR: stage the session's work, commit, push, and open a draft PR

You are wrapping up a unit of work into a pull request. Your job is to commit and push only the files you changed during this working session, write a clean description from the template below, and open the PR as a draft. You open drafts only — never mark ready, never merge.

The single most important rule of this skill is safe staging (see below). The user routinely has other locally-modified files — app-specific setup, local config, files containing secrets — that must never be committed. You stage by explicit path, only the files this session touched, and nothing else.

When to use this skill

• "Draft a PR" / "open a draft PR" / "make a PR for what I just did"
• "Write up these changes for review" after finishing work on a branch

When NOT to use this skill

• Marking a PR ready for review, or merging — this skill stops at draft.
• Reviewing someone else's PR.
• Committing without a PR, or committing files you didn't change this session.

Safe staging (read first — this is the cardinal rule)

• Stage only the files YOU created or edited during this session, listed by explicit path. You know this set from your own edits this session.
• NEVER use git add -A, git add ., git add -u, or git commit -a. No blanket staging, ever.
• Run git status --short and compare. Any modified/untracked file you did NOT touch this session is excluded — do not stage it. These often hold secrets or local-only setup. Report them as left-untouched; never commit them.
• Even among files you touched, never stage obvious secret/local-config files (.env, *.local.*, *.pem, *.key, credential or appsettings.* files). If the work genuinely required changing one, stop and ask instead of staging it.
• If you're unsure whether a file belongs to this session's changeset, exclude it and say so — under-staging is safe, over-staging can leak.

Steps

1. Build the changeset. List the exact files you created or edited this session. Run git status --short to see everything dirty, and split it into this-session (will stage) vs other (will not touch).

2. Pick the branch. Get the current branch (git branch --show-current). If it's the default branch (main/master), create a feature branch first (git checkout -b <name>) — derive a short kebab-case name from the work or ticket. Never commit the changeset directly onto the default branch.

3. Stage explicitly. git add <path1> <path2> … with the this-session paths only. Confirm with git status --short that nothing else got staged.

4. Commit. Write a descriptive message — an action-led subject line, plus (for non-trivial work) a short body of bullets covering what changed and why. This message is the primary source for the PR's What Changed section, so make it accurate and complete. No Co-Authored-By / AI attribution. Match the existing repo commit style if evident.

5. Push. git push -u origin <branch>.

6. Report the changeset. Tell the user exactly what was committed and what was deliberately left unstaged:

   Committed & pushed (N files): <paths>
   Left untouched (not part of this session): <paths or "none">
   

7. Draft the description. Build What Changed primarily from the commit message(s) on this branch (git log <base>..HEAD), reconciled against git diff so nothing is misstated or missed. Get the repo name (gh repo view --json name --jq .name), derive the issue link (see Issue linking), and ask the verification/testing type via AskUserQuestion (API · UI · data-migration · infra · none). For the testing-section formats, read references/testing-variants.md once the variant is known. Build the description from Output format.

8. Open as a draft. gh pr create --draft --base <base> --head <branch> --title "<title>" --body-file <file>. Always --draft. Report the PR URL and stop.

Output format

The template is configurable; this is the default. Omit any section that doesn't apply.

<issue-link line — see Issue linking; omit if none>

## What Changed

- <Action-led bullet — "Added…", "Switched…", "Removed…" — with the why when non-obvious>

## Review Focus

- <Where reviewers should look; dependencies on other PRs; auth/perf/edge-case concerns>

## Testing

<The variant chosen in step 7, formatted per references/testing-variants.md. Omit if "none".>

Issue linking (tracker-agnostic)

1. Read the branch name and extract a ticket/issue number from common patterns — e.g. feature/PROJ-123-..., 123-short-desc, gh-123, <base>_<TICKET>-<n>.
2. If the host is GitHub and the number is a repo issue, emit Closes #<n>.
3. For any other tracker, build the link from a configurable base URL the adopter sets — placeholder <TRACKER_URL_BASE> — e.g. [Ticket](<TRACKER_URL_BASE>/<n>). Never hardcode a tracker host, workspace ID, or org.
4. If you can't confidently derive a number, ask the user or omit the line — don't guess.

Rules

What to do

• Safe staging above all. Explicit paths only; report what you excluded.
• Branch off the default branch before committing — never commit onto main/master.
• Lead bullets with the action verb; include motivation when it isn't obvious.
• A few clear sentences per section. No filler, no restating the ticket verbatim.
• Ask the verification type before drafting, so the Testing section is right the first time.

What NOT to do

• NEVER blanket-stage (git add -A/./-u, commit -a) or stage a file you didn't change this session.
• NEVER stage secret/local-config files — stop and ask if the work touched one.
• NEVER mark the PR ready or merge it. Draft only.
• NEVER add Co-Authored-By or AI-attribution lines to commits or the PR body.
• No hardcoded org, team label, tracker URL/workspace, or real-world examples. Everything project-specific is a <PLACEHOLDER>.

Format discipline

• Report the changeset (committed vs left-untouched) plainly, then the PR URL. No preamble.