pr-creator

Write PR descriptions like a developer posting in Slack, not an AI summarizing a diff.

• IS: creating or updating a GitHub PR title and body: short human-sounding description, Linear ID prefix, commit restructuring, reviewer guidance for large diffs.
• IS NOT: reviewing the diff for bugs (use pr-reviewer), watching CI and review comments (use pr-babysitter), or cutting npm releases (use autoship).

Reference Files

Workflow

Work through this checklist:

PR creation progress:
- [ ] Inspect: git status, git log origin/main..HEAD, git diff origin/main...HEAD
- [ ] Existing PR? gh pr view --json url,number,state (edit, not create, if one exists)
- [ ] Find the Linear ID (branch, commits, prompt, PR context); skip prefix if none
- [ ] Noisy commits or >500-line diff? Read references/pr-polish.md and restructure first
- [ ] Push with upstream: git push -u origin HEAD
- [ ] Draft title and body against the rules and anti-patterns below
- [ ] Check .github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md; fill its sections briefly if present
- [ ] New PR: gh pr create. Existing open PR: gh pr edit. Verify with gh pr view; return the URL

Do not ask the user to confirm the description before creating or updating; the point is speed.

Rules

1. Title. With a Linear ID: ABC-123: Add auth flow. Without one: Add auth flow. Under 60 chars, no trailing period.
2. Body. One short paragraph: what changed and why it matters.
3. No fake why. If the reason is not in the prompt, Linear issue, branch, commits, or diff, leave it out.
4. Risk only when real. One short Risk: line only for migrations, billing/auth/permission changes, irreversible writes, wide blast radius, or subtle behavior changes.
5. Testing only if real. Mention it only when actually run. Never a Test plan section.
6. No file-by-file changelogs. The diff already shows the files.
7. End after the useful content. No generated-by footer, no co-author line.

Anti-patterns: never write these

• “This PR implements…”
• “This change ensures…”
• “This commit introduces…”
• “Refactored X to improve Y”
• “Updated the Z component to handle…”
• “Added comprehensive test coverage for…”
• “Ensured backwards compatibility with…”
• Lines that start with a filename or path
• A “Test plan” section with checkboxes
• A long list of bullets that restates the diff

Examples

Feature (assume ABC-123 is the real Linear ID)

Title: ABC-123: Add auth flow with session management
 
Adds the auth flow needed for session-based login, including refresh, timeout handling, and a small error boundary for auth failures.

Bugfix (real risk, real testing)

Title: PAY-482: Dedupe Stripe webhook retries
 
Stripe retries webhooks on timeout and our handler wasn't idempotent, so retried events created duplicate invoices. Now we record processed event IDs and skip repeats. Tested by replaying a captured retry sequence locally.
 
Risk: touches the billing write path.

Both carry the real why from the commits and then stop. Risk: earns its line in the second because the diff touches billing writes; the testing sentence is there only because a replay actually ran.

Creating the PR

Probe for an existing PR first (gh pr view --json url,number,state; state == OPEN means edit, not create). The heredoc must be quoted (<<'EOF') and the branch needs an upstream: see Gotchas.

No PR yet: create

git push -u origin HEAD   # skip if upstream already set
 
gh pr create --title "ABC-123: Add auth flow" --body "$(cat <<'EOF'
One short paragraph that explains what changed and why it matters.
EOF
)"
 
gh pr view --json url,title   # evidence the PR exists; return the url

PR already open: update title and body

gh pr edit overwrites the title and body wholesale, so draft the full replacement, not a patch. Same rules and anti-patterns apply.

git push origin HEAD   # push any local commits the PR doesn't have yet
 
gh pr edit --title "ABC-123: Add auth flow" --body "$(cat <<'EOF'
One short paragraph that explains what changed and why it matters.
EOF
)"
 
gh pr view --json url,title   # confirm the update; return the url

Gotchas

• gh pr create on a branch with no upstream hangs forever on an interactive “Where should we push?” prompt. Run git push -u origin HEAD first.
• Quote the heredoc delimiter (<<'EOF'). Unquoted <<EOF lets the shell expand backticks and $vars in the body, corrupting the description or running commands.
• --body silently discards .github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md. If the template exists, fill its sections with short answers, and do not add sections it does not ask for.
• Derive the Linear ID from the branch (mblode/abc-123-add-auth gives ABC-123, uppercased). Never guess: Linear’s GitHub integration links the PR to whatever ID the title contains.
• gh pr create from the default branch fails with “no commits between main and main”. Check git branch --show-current first.
• gh pr create on a branch with an open PR fails with “a pull request for branch … already exists”. Check gh pr view first, then switch to gh pr edit.
• Plain git diff shows only uncommitted changes, so on a committed branch it is empty and the description is written blind. Diff against the merge base: git diff origin/main...HEAD.

Related skills

• pr-reviewer: run before creating to check the diff for bugs.
• pr-babysitter: hand off after creation to watch CI, conflicts, and review comments.
• autoship: npm release pipeline (changesets, version PR, publish); not this skill’s job.