commit

To safely commit changes and open a pull request, use a workflow that creates a feature branch, stages only explicitly specified files, and excludes local settings like settings.local.json. This prevents accidentally committing secrets while organizing your updates for review.

The best way to stage specific files for a git commit is using explicit git add commands for selected files after inspecting changes with git status and git diff. This ensures only intended updates are included while local secret or settings files are automatically excluded.

A branch-first git workflow protects the main branch by creating a new development branch from the current state, ensuring you never commit directly to main. Changes are pushed to the feature branch, reviewed via a pull request, and safely merged back into main.

To create a pull request with a test plan using gh, execute gh pr create with a structured PR body that includes a descriptive commit rationale. This organizes your feature branch updates for review before safely merging them into the main branch.

To merge a pull request to main and clean up the branch, use gh pr merge with a consistent merge strategy. This safely integrates your reviewed changes into main and removes the feature branch to maintain a clean repository state.