Scan Git for TILs Skill

Analyzes recent GitHub commits across all your repos to find TIL-worthy topics.

Notion Database

TIL Assessed Commits Database

• Database ID: 928fcd9e47a84f98824790ac5a6d37ca
• Data Source ID: cba80148-aeef-49c9-ba45-5157668b17b3

Properties:

• Commit Hash (title): Full SHA hash
• Message: Commit message
• Repo: Repository full name
• Commit Date (date): When the commit was made
• Writing (relation): Link to Writing database if TIL was drafted
• Assessed (date): When commit was assessed

Usage

Step 1: Run the script

python3 ~/.claude/skills/scanning-git-for-tils/scan_git.py [days]

Arguments:

• days (optional): Number of days to look back (default: 30)

The script automatically:

• Fetches assessed commit hashes from Notion (via 1Password for auth)
• Fetches your commits from GitHub
• Filters out already-assessed commits

Output: JSON with:

• markdown: Commit details for Claude to evaluate
• new_commits: Array of commits with hash, message, repo, date

Step 2: Evaluate commits

Review the commits in the markdown field and identify the top 5-10 that would make good TILs.

Important: The markdown shows commits with an (index: N) - this maps to new_commits[N] array which contains full commit data you'll need for publishing.

Good TIL candidates have:

• Solved a non-obvious problem (gotchas, edge cases, surprising behavior)
• Learned something worth sharing (new technique, tool usage, configuration)
• Fixed a bug that others might encounter
• Set up tooling or configuration that was tricky
• Implemented a pattern that could help others

Skip commits that are:

• Routine maintenance (version bumps, dependency updates, cleanup)
• Trivial changes (typos, formatting, simple renames)
• Chores without learning value (CI tweaks, file reorganization)
• Too project-specific to be useful to others

For each selected commit:

1. Note the index number from markdown
2. Look up full commit data in new_commits[index]
3. Generate:
   • Suggested title: Clear, direct (e.g., "How to X" or "Why Y happens")
   • TIL angle: The specific learning worth documenting

Step 3: Display results

Present suggestions ranked from best to worst by TIL potential:

📝 TIL Opportunities from Git History (last N days):

1. **Suggested Title Here** [BEST]
   - Repo: owner/repo
   - Commit: abc1234 "original commit message"
   - Date: 3 days ago
   - Files: file1.py, file2.py
   - TIL angle: What makes this worth documenting
   - URL: https://github.com/...

2. **Second Best Title**
   ...

10. **Still Worth Documenting**
   ...

Ranking criteria (highest priority first):

1. Broad applicability - Will help many developers, not project-specific
2. Non-obvious insight - Gotcha, surprising behavior, or clever solution
3. Recency - More recent commits are fresher to write about
4. Clear learning - Easy to extract a concrete takeaway

Note: Don't create tracker entries at this stage. The publish_til.py script will create tracker entries when drafts are actually published. This prevents duplicates and ensures only drafted commits are marked as assessed.

What It Returns

JSON output example:

{
  "markdown": "Git commits from last 30 days:\n\n1. [ooloth/dotfiles] fix: properly ignore .env\n   Hash: abc1234 | Date: 3 days ago\n   ...",
  "new_commits": [
    {
      "hash": "abc1234567890...",
      "message": "fix: properly ignore .env after initial commit",
      "repo": "ooloth/dotfiles",
      "date": "2025-01-15"
    },
    ...
  ]
}

How It Works

1. Script fetches commits - Queries GitHub API for your recent commits across all repos
2. Filters obvious skips - Removes merge commits, dependabot, already-assessed
3. Returns all candidates - Outputs commit details for Claude to evaluate
4. Claude evaluates - Reviews commits and selects top 5-10 TIL candidates
5. Records suggestions to Notion - Only suggested commits are marked as assessed (allows incremental backlog review)

Notes

• Requires gh CLI installed and authenticated
• Requires op CLI installed and authenticated (1Password)
• Notion token stored at op://Scripts/Notion/api-access-token
• Searches commits authored by your GitHub username (includes any repos where you've committed)
• Script filters merge commits and dependency bot commits
• Claude evaluates remaining commits for TIL potential
• Notion sync prevents duplicate suggestions across machines