commit-brief

Turn yesterday's git log into a one-paragraph standup summary.

commit-brief reads your git history (commit messages, authors, branch refs, per-file change stats — never diffs) and asks an LLM for a terse standup digest. One command, two interfaces:

• commit-brief — standup digest at your terminal.

• commit-brief mcp — MCP server, so your agents (Claude Code, Codex, ...) can call the same core as a tool.

Install

Requires Python 3.11+ and uv (or pipx).

# PyPI — CLI only (works once published):
uv tool install commit-brief

# with the MCP server (needs the mcp extra):
uv tool install "commit-brief[mcp]"

# Pre-publish fallback — install straight from GitHub:
uv tool install git+https://github.com/ahm3d-karim/commit-brief

# with the MCP server from git:
uv tool install "git+https://github.com/ahm3d-karim/commit-brief[mcp]"

# from a local checkout instead:
uv tool install ".[mcp]"

# pipx equivalent (from PyPI once published, or the git URL until then):
pipx install "commit-brief[mcp]"

Installs one command: commit-brief. Then set your API key:

export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...   # or add it to your shell profile

Model default: claude-sonnet-4-20250514 (override with COMMIT_BRIEF_MODEL).

Related MCP server: git-insights-mcp

CLI

# from inside any repo — yesterday's commits, one paragraph
commit-brief

# other repos / windows / filters
commit-brief --repo ../other-repo --since '3 days ago'
commit-brief --since '7 days ago' --author 'Alice'
commit-brief --author 'Alice' --author 'Bob' --bullets

# no API key? see exactly what the LLM would receive
commit-brief --dry-run

# raw structured commits (hash, author, subject, body, refs, per-file stats)
commit-brief --json

--since/--until accept anything git accepts: yesterday, 3 days ago, 2026-08-01. --author is repeatable (OR). Exit codes: 0 ok / no commits, 2 git or API error.

Incremental digests

Running commit-brief every day re-summarizes the same commits. --since-last digests only what is new since your last successful run (tracked per repo in ~/.commit-brief.json — rebase/force-push safe: it falls back to the full window if the saved commit disappears):

commit-brief --since-last          # only new commits since the last digest
commit-brief --since-last --bullets

Every successful digest advances the pointer, so plain commit-brief and --since-last cooperate. --dry-run and --json never touch the pointer.

Commit hygiene hook

The digest is only as good as the commit messages it reads. Enforce conventional commits at the source:

commit-brief hook install          # write .git/hooks/commit-msg (this repo)
commit-brief hook status           # installed? (safe — foreign hooks never touched)
commit-brief hook check <file>     # validate a message file (exit 0/1)
commit-brief hook uninstall        # remove only if commit-brief installed it

Rejects feat:, fix:, feat(api):, fix!:, docs: … anything that is not type(scope)!: subject (Merge/Revert/fixup!/squash!/amend! pass through), with a friendly reason on stderr. Per-repo, opt-in — your call whether you want it.

Interactive menu + GitHub mode

Bare commit-brief (no args) opens a menu:

• Local — this folder, or pick any git repo in the current tree; asks for the commit window (default yesterday) and authors (default all)

• GitHub — sign in (reuses your gh CLI login, or paste a token once), pick repos from your account — numbers, ranges, search, or any owner/repo — and get a per-repo digest

First run checks git/uv/python and offers consent-based installs, and asks for an API key exactly once if none is found anywhere (it is saved to ~/.commit-brief.json as the default key). After that it never asks again — keys are resolved silently from the provider's env var (OPENAI_API_KEY, DEEPSEEK_API_KEY, …), the saved config, or Hermes' .env (so keys you already use with Hermes just work). Missing keys fail with a clean error instead of nagging; --json and --dry-run never need one. Non-interactive: commit-brief --github for GitHub mode with the usual flags.

Multi-provider LLM (BYOK)

Any provider, any key, any model. Pick interactively in the menu, or pass flags:

commit-brief --provider deepseek --since '3 days ago'
commit-brief --provider openai --model gpt-4o-mini
commit-brief --provider groq --dry-run        # prompt only, no key needed
commit-brief --provider custom --base-url http://localhost:8000/v1 --model llama3.1

Providers (mirrors Hermes' supported list): anthropic, openai, openrouter, gemini, xai, deepseek, groq, mistral, ollama (local, no key), huggingface, zai (GLM), minimax, minimax_cn, kimi (moonshot), dashscope, xiaomi, kilocode, opencode_zen, opencode_go, fireworks, novita, arcee, gmi, tencent, nvidia, stepfun, custom (any OpenAI-compatible endpoint). --model accepts any model identifier the provider supports; custom always asks for its base URL and model name, and never inherits another provider's default. Keys resolve silently, in order: provider env var → ~/.commit-brief.json (llm_keys) → Hermes' .env → the saved default key. You are asked for a key only on the very first startup, and only when no key exists anywhere — never again.

MCP server

The server exposes the same core as two tools: summarize_standup and list_commits (params: repo, since, until, author, bullets, dry_run — dry_run returns the prompt at zero API cost).

Run it (needs the [mcp] extra installed):

commit-brief mcp
# from a source checkout: uv run --extra mcp python -m commit_brief.mcp_server

Register with Claude Code:

claude mcp add commit-brief -- commit-brief mcp

Then just ask: "summarize yesterday's commits in this repo" or "what did each dev ship last week?" — the agent calls the tool with the right args.

Self-test the server end to end (spawns it, lists tools, exercises both tools against a repo — pass a path or set CBR_TEST_REPO; defaults to the current directory):

commit-brief mcp-test
commit-brief mcp-test /path/to/repo

Design notes

• Messages + stats, never diffs. The LLM sees subjects, bodies, authors, branch refs, and per-file (+a -d) counts. Cheap, and code never leaves the repo.

• Git subprocess hygiene: git is spawned with stdin=DEVNULL and GIT_PAGER=cat. Without this, a git spawned inside an MCP stdio server on Windows/MSYS2 gets SIGTERM'd (rc 143) because it inherits the protocol pipe / console state. This is the fix — don't remove it.

• mcp is pinned <2 because 2.x replaced FastMCP with a new API; the stdio protocol is identical, so 1.x keeps the server code simple.

Testing

uv run --extra test pytest       # core + CLI suite (unit tests, no API needed)
commit-brief mcp-test            # end-to-end MCP smoke test (spawns the server)

CI runs the pytest suite on every push (GitHub Actions, .github/workflows/ci.yml). The MCP smoke test is intentionally excluded from pytest — it spawns servers and exits the process — so it stays a self-serve command.

Project layout

commit_brief/core.py       git log parsing + prompt building + LLM call
commit_brief/cli.py        one command: standup (default) + mcp / mcp-test
commit_brief/mcp_server.py FastMCP wrapper (2 tools)
commit_brief/mcp_test.py   end-to-end MCP smoke test (used by mcp-test)
scripts/test_mcp_client.py thin shim over commit_brief.mcp_test