start-branch

start-branch is a skill for Claude Code from dkmqflx/git-workflow-plugin. It costs 145 tokens per session (602 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A Git workflow for creating and switching to a new branch, which is a separate line of work in a code repository. It chooses a name based on the task and can start from the current position or a named base branch.

In plain words
What is it for?
Creating branches such as feat/user-authentication or fix/cart-total-calculation, including branches based on main, dev, master, or stage.
Why use it?
It avoids manually choosing branch names and checking out the wrong starting point when beginning a feature, fix, or other task.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin.

Part of the git-workflow plugin — 5 skills shipped together

Good fit Creating branches such as feat/user-authentication or fix/cart-total-calculation, including branches based on main, dev, master, or stage.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/dkmqflx/git-workflow-plugin/start-branch
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add dkmqflx/git-workflow-plugin --skill start-branch
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/dkmqflx/git-workflow-plugin

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install git-workflow, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 5 skills.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for start-branch

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/dkmqflx/git-workflow-plugin/start-branch/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/dkmqflx/git-workflow-plugin/start-branch)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/dkmqflx/git-workflow-plugin/start-branch"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/dkmqflx/git-workflow-plugin/start-branch/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for start-branch

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/dkmqflx/git-workflow-plugin/start-branch"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/dkmqflx/git-workflow-plugin/start-branch.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 145 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 602 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00145 $0.00602
Opus 5.5 $0.00058 $0.00241
Sonnet 5.5 $0.00029 $0.00120
Haiku 4.5 $0.00015 $0.00060

Measured 1mo ago against content hash 5ff16fb37feb, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

start-branch scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 1mo ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

plugins/git-workflow/skills/start-branch/SKILL.md · 53 lines

What it actually says

Start Branch

Generate an appropriate branch name for the task and switch to it — from the current position, or from a named base branch.

When to apply

Starting work on a new feature, fix, or task directly in the current directory. Do not apply for worktree (separate checkout directory) — that is /worktree.

Branch naming convention

Format: <type>/<short-description>

Type When to use
feat/ New feature or capability
fix/ Bug fix
chore/ Maintenance, config, dependency updates
refactor/ Restructuring without behavior change
docs/ Documentation only
test/ Test additions or changes

Description rules: lowercase, hyphen-separated, 2–5 words, describes WHAT (not HOW).

Examples: feat/user-authentication, fix/cart-total-calculation, chore/update-eslint-config, refactor/extract-payment-service

Steps

  1. Determine the base:
    • If the user named a specific branch (e.g. dev, master, main, stage), that is the base branch.
    • Otherwise, the base is the current position — no checkout needed before branching.
  2. Derive the branch name from the user's task description using the convention above. If no task description was given (bare /start-branch), ask one short question first.
  3. If a base branch was named, switch to it and pull latest, then branch from it:
    git checkout <base branch> && git pull
    git checkout -b <branch-name>
    
    Otherwise, branch directly from the current position:
    git checkout -b <branch-name>
    
  4. Confirm in one line: Switched to new branch: <branch-name> (append (from <base branch>) if a base was named)
  5. Begin the user's task.
Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 1mo ago First seen · 53 lines · 145 tokens per session scan A 5ff16fb37feb

Subscribe to this mod's changes

start-branch is a skill published in the GitHub repository dkmqflx/git-workflow-plugin (1 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 145 tokens to every session and 602 once invoked, about $0.0006 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

Related

Other skills, from other repositories

procoder

Work like a senior developer in a repository governed by procoder: run the commit gate before calling anything done, format and lint through the binary, and drive the spec, plan, todo, backlog, and sprint chain in .procoder/. Use this skill when the repository contains a .procoder/ directory or an AGENTS.md naming…

azrtydxb/procoder · 101 tokens

dsh-plugin-publisher

A release tool for DSH plugins, where DSH is the DeepSeek Harness used to load these add-ons. It validates an existing plugin package, publishes it through npm, Git, or a tarball, and checks that the harness can load it.

lovstudio/skills · 82 tokens

lov-skill-optimizer

Audit and optimize one or more existing Agent Skills from a canonical source path, then bump semver, update README/SKILL.md/skill.yaml/CHANGELOG.md, and verify installed copies and catalog synchronization. Checks frontmatter, trigger quality, CLI hygiene, naming, portability, version drift, dirty worktrees, shared…

lovstudio/skills · 127 tokens

lov-rename-project

A project-renaming workflow that updates a product or repository name across source files, configuration, and documentation. It produces a reviewable plan and preserves compatibility-sensitive names and references where needed.

lovstudio/skills · 45 tokens

lov-gh-access

Open a private GitHub repo to external clients or contractors without making it public. Accepts a mixed list of GitHub usernames and/or email addresses, resolves each to a GitHub account (falling back to an email invitation when the user has no discoverable account yet), and invites them as collaborators with a chosen…

lovstudio/skills · 151 tokens

lov-skill-publisher

Publish or submit a validated Skill. Default to the LovStudio official website, run lov-skill-pricing automatically, and use other channels only when explicitly named.

lovstudio/skills · 38 tokens