While Git Flow (specifically the AVH edition) remains a solid branching model for managing releases and hotfixes in structured production environments, running its full suite of CLI commands daily can feel tedious and error-prone.
Switching branches, stashing uncommitted work, synchronizing develop and main/master, calculating the next Semantic Version (SemVer), drafting tag release notes, and pushing tags across multiple remotes introduce friction that slows down engineering velocity.
To solve this, I built git-flow-shortcuts: a lightweight Zsh plugin that streamlines the entire Git Flow lifecycle with Conventional Commits, automated SemVer bumping, transparent stash/pop handling, and an optional Claude Code skill.
⚡ Key Highlights
- 🔄 Safe Base Branch Sync (
gup): Automatically pulls the latest changes for bothdevelopandmain/mastervia--ff-only, while safely stashing and restoring your working directory. - 🏷️ Automated SemVer Calculation: Determines the next release/hotfix version based on existing Git tags (e.g.,
1.4.2$\rightarrow$1.5.0for releases or1.5.0$\rightarrow$1.5.1for hotfixes). - 💬 Conventional Commits Engine (
gcMsg): Enforces structured commits (feat(scope): message) with built-in pull/push sync and breaking change flags (--breaking). - 📦 Seamless Release & Hotfix Finish: Merges to both target branches without popping up annoying interactive merge editors, creates annotated tags from markdown changelogs, and pushes branches + tags upstream.
- 🤖 AI-Orchestrated via Claude Code: Includes a ready-to-use skill in
bonus/skill-claude-code/so an AI CLI agent can analyze your diffs and orchestrate these commands directly.
🛠️ Installation
You can install it using your preferred Zsh plugin manager or standard shell configuration:
Oh My Zsh
git clone https://github.com/cleversontrujilu/zsh-git-flow-shortcuts \
"${ZSH_CUSTOM:-$HOME/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/git-flow-shortcuts"
