Git guidelines - best practices

Purpose

This document gives simple, practical advice for working with Git in this project.

Official Git rules and repository governance are defined in:

• git-rules.md

This document does not define rules.

Scope

These guidelines apply to everyday development work.

Working guidelines

• Keep commits focused so the project history stays easy to read
• Use your personal fork to test and integrate changes

Branch practices

• Use a separate branch for any change that is more than a small fix
• Keep branches short-lived and remove them after merge

Commit messages

• Write clear commit messages
• Avoid unnecessary or purely automatic commits
• A squashed commit should still clearly describe the change

Pull request practices

• Split large changes into smaller PRs when possible
• If a change must be large, explain why in the PR description

Review practices

• Explain what your PR does and why
• Avoid mixing refactoring and behavior changes if possible

Things to avoid

• Very large or unclear commits
• Long-lived branches without a clear purpose
• Risky changes on main branches without review
• Changing shared history without coordination

If something goes wrong

• Find the last working state
• Fix or restore carefully

Key idea

Prefer clear, careful work over rigid process.