contribute-now is a developer CLI that automates git workflows — branching, syncing, staging, committing, and opening PRs — so you can focus on shipping, not on memorizing git commands.

It natively supports multiple workflow models and commit conventions, with AI-powered assistance throughout.

Pick the model that matches your project during contrib setup. contribute-now adapts its commands to your chosen workflow automatically — no manual branch names to remember.

contribute-now validates commit messages and guides your AI toward the right format — based on whichever convention you configure.

npx contribute-now setup

Or install globally:

npm install -g contribute-now
contrib setup

contrib, contribute, and cn all invoke the same binary — use whichever you prefer.

Fun fact: cn is shorter than git. Yes, your workflow command is now faster to type than git itself. 🚀

# npm
npm install -g contribute-now

# bun
bun install -g contribute-now

Once installed, you can use any of the three aliases:

contrib setup     # classic
contribute setup  # spelled out
cn setup          # shortest — even shorter than git!

• Git — required
• GitHub CLI (gh) — recommended; required for PR creation, role detection, and merge status checks
• GitHub Copilot — optional; enables AI features

Interactive setup wizard. Configures your repo's workflow mode, commit convention, your role, and branch/remote names. Writes .contributerc.json.

contrib setup

Steps:

1. Choose workflow mode — Clean Flow, GitHub Flow, or Git Flow
2. Choose commit convention — Clean Commit, Conventional Commits, or None
3. Detect remotes and auto-detect your role (maintainer or contributor)
4. Confirm branch and remote names
5. Write .contributerc.json

Pull the latest changes from the correct remote branch based on your workflow and role.

contrib sync         # with confirmation
contrib sync --yes   # skip confirmation

Create a new feature branch from the correct base branch, with optional AI-powered branch naming.

# Direct branch name
contrib start feature/user-auth

# Natural language — AI suggests the branch name
contrib start "add user authentication"

# Skip AI
contrib start "add user authentication" --no-ai

Stage your changes and create a validated, AI-generated commit message matching your configured convention.

contrib commit                     # AI-generated message
contrib commit --no-ai             # manual entry, still validated
contrib commit --model gpt-4.1    # specific AI model
contrib commit --group             # AI groups changes into atomic commits

After the AI generates a message, you can accept, edit, regenerate, or write manually. Messages are always validated against your convention — with a soft warning if they don't match (you can still commit).

Group commit mode (--group): AI analyzes all staged and unstaged changes, groups related files into logical atomic commits, and generates a commit message for each group. Great for splitting a large set of changes into clean, reviewable commits.

Rebase your current branch onto the latest base branch, with AI guidance if conflicts occur.

contrib update
contrib update --no-ai   # skip AI conflict guidance

Push your branch and open a pull request with an AI-generated title and description.

contrib submit
contrib submit --draft
contrib submit --no-ai
contrib submit --model gpt-4.1

Delete merged branches and prune stale remote refs.

contrib clean          # shows candidates, asks to confirm
contrib clean --yes    # skip confirmation

Show a sync status dashboard for your main, dev, and current branch.

contrib status

Diagnose the contribute-now CLI environment and configuration. Checks tools, dependencies, config, git state, fork setup, workflow, and environment.

contrib doctor          # pretty-printed report
contrib doctor --json   # machine-readable JSON output

Checks include:

• CLI version and runtime (Bun/Node)
• git and GitHub CLI availability and authentication
• .contributerc.json validity and .gitignore status
• Git repo state (uncommitted changes, lock files, shallow clone)
• Fork and remote configuration
• Workflow and branch setup

Show a colorized, workflow-aware commit log. By default it shows only local unpushed commits — the changes you've made since the last push (or since branching off the base branch). Use flags to switch between different views.

contrib log                # local unpushed commits (default)
contrib log --remote       # commits on remote not yet pulled
contrib log --full         # full history for the current branch
contrib log --all          # commits across all branches
contrib log -n 50          # change the commit limit (default: 20)
contrib log -b feature/x   # log for a specific branch
contrib log --no-graph     # flat view without graph lines

When no upstream tracking is set (branch hasn't been pushed yet), the command automatically compares against the base branch from your config (e.g., origin/dev). Protected branches are highlighted, and the current branch is color-coded for quick orientation.

List branches with workflow-aware labels and tracking status.

contrib branch             # local branches
contrib branch --all       # local + remote branches
contrib branch --remote    # remote branches only

Branches are annotated with workflow labels (e.g., base, dev, feature) and tracking info (upstream, gone, no remote).

Install or uninstall a commit-msg git hook that validates every commit against your configured convention — no Husky or lint-staged needed.

contrib hook install     # writes .git/hooks/commit-msg
contrib hook uninstall   # removes it

• Automatically skips merge commits, fixup, squash, and amend commits
• Won't overwrite hooks it didn't create

Validate a commit message against your configured convention. Exits 0 if valid, 1 if not — useful in CI pipelines or custom hooks.

contrib validate "📦 new: user auth module"     # exit 0
contrib validate "added stuff"                   # exit 1

All AI features are powered by GitHub Copilot via @github/copilot-sdk and are entirely optional — every command has a manual fallback.

Pass --no-ai to any command to skip AI entirely. Use --model <name> to select a specific Copilot model (e.g., gpt-4.1, claude-sonnet-4).

Format: <emoji> <type>[!][(<scope>)]: <description>

Examples:

📦 new: user authentication system
🔧 update (api): improve error handling
⚙️ setup (ci): configure github actions
🔧 update!: breaking change to config format

→ Clean Commit spec

Format: <type>[!][(<scope>)]: <description>

Types: feat, fix, docs, style, refactor, perf, test, build, ci, chore, revert

Examples:

feat: add user authentication
fix(auth): resolve token expiry issue
docs: update contributing guide
feat!: redesign authentication API

→ conventionalcommits.org

contrib setup writes .contributerc.json to your repo root:

{
  "workflow": "clean-flow",
  "commitConvention": "clean-commit",
  "role": "contributor",
  "mainBranch": "main",
  "devBranch": "dev",
  "upstream": "upstream",
  "origin": "origin",
  "branchPrefixes": ["feature", "fix", "docs", "chore", "test", "refactor"]
}

Add .contributerc.json to your .gitignore — it contains personal config and should not be committed.

git clone https://github.com/warengonzaga/contribute-now.git
cd contribute-now
bun install

bun run build   # compile to dist/index.js
bun test        # run tests
bun run lint    # check code quality

Contributions are welcome, create a pull request to this repo and I will review your code. Please consider to submit your pull request to the dev branch. Thank you!

Read the project's contributing guide for more info.

Please report any issues and bugs by creating a new issue here, also make sure you're reporting an issue that doesn't exist. Any help to improve the project would be appreciated. Thanks! 🙏✨

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Read the project's code of conduct.

This project is licensed under GNU General Public License v3.0.

This project is created by Waren Gonzaga, with the help of awesome contributors.

💻💖☕ by Waren Gonzaga & YHWH 🙏 — Without Him, none of this exists, even me.