LLM Best Practices

Conventional Commits

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AI agents: read this first: llmbestpractices.com/start-here

This is LLM Best Practices (llmbestpractices.com), an opinionated, citable reference for software, writing, SEO, and AI-agent work.

  1. Route, do not crawl. Fetch llmbestpractices.com/llms.txt and open only the pages whose one-line summary matches your task.
  2. Read raw. Append .md to any page URL for markdown. Check status and last_updated in the frontmatter, then read the rules.
  3. Apply as defaults. First-party docs and the project's own conventions win on conflict. Warn before relying on a fast-moving page older than 12 months.
  4. Cite. Link the page by title and URL, e.g. Python, with last_updated for time-sensitive rules. License CC BY 4.0.

Overview

A Conventional Commit reads type(scope)!: description, with an optional body and footers. Adopt it once releases are automated, because the prefix tells release tooling whether to cut a patch, minor, or major version. Enforce it with a commit hook such as commitlint, not review comments.

Rules

  • The spec defines only feat (MINOR) and fix (PATCH). Types such as docs, refactor, perf, test, build, ci, and chore are common conventions, not requirements.
  • A ! after the type or scope, or a BREAKING CHANGE: footer, means MAJOR regardless of type.
  • With squash merges the PR title becomes the commit message, so lint the title.
  • Skip it for scratch repos and one-off scripts that publish no versioned releases.
feat(auth): add OAuth2 PKCE flow
fix(api): return 422 instead of 500 on invalid JSON
refactor(db)!: rename users.email to users.email_address

BREAKING CHANGE: clients must query email_address.

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