git-cognitive

Cognitive debt detection and management for Git repositories. Zero LLM. Zero network. All signals from git.

The problem

AI coding agents ship code fast. Humans lose track of what was AI-generated and what was reviewed. Over time, unreviewed AI code accumulates as a liability — call it cognitive debt.

How it works

Every git commit automatically:

1. Slices the active Claude Code session to the window between this commit and the previous one
2. Attributes AI lines by matching agent Write/Edit tool calls against the commit diff
3. Scores friction via tree-sitter AST analysis (complexity delta, doc gap, author churn)
4. Classifies the commit and writes to the cognitive-debt/v1 orphan branch

Each commit gets three files stored in a sharded orphan branch:

cognitive-debt/v1
└── ab/cd/ef1234/
    ├── activity.json     — classification, friction score, AI attribution, endorsement status
    ├── endorsements.json — who endorsed it and when
    └── session.jsonl     — the Claude conversation that produced this commit

No external service. No daemon. Everything in git.

Friction score

Three signals, weighted sum (0.0–1.0):

• Complexity delta (0.4) — real decision points added (if, match arm, &&, ||, etc.) parsed via tree-sitter AST
• Doc gap (0.4) — functions added without a doc comment node in the AST
• Author churn (0.2) — distinct committers on changed files in the last 90 days

AI attribution

Checked in priority order:

1. Agent-Attribution: 75% trailer in the commit message — exact percentage
2. Line-level matching — agent Write/Edit lines vs git diff lines, per file
3. Keyword scan — Co-Authored-By: Claude, co-authored-by: copilot, cursor, ai-generated

Install

cargo install git-cognitive

Or from source:

git clone https://github.com/ccherrad/git-cognitive
cd git-cognitive
cargo install --path .

Quickstart

# 1. Enable automatic auditing on every commit
git-cognitive enable claude

# 2. See the debt
git-cognitive debt

# 3. Endorse commits interactively
git-cognitive endorse

# 4. Share with your team
git-cognitive push

Commands

enable

git-cognitive enable claude

Writes .git/hooks/post-commit to auto-audit and push on every commit.

audit

git-cognitive audit [--commit <SHA>|HEAD] [--since <SHA>] [--all] [--check-zombies]

Walks commits and writes activity to cognitive-debt/v1. Run manually to backfill history.

• --all — backfill last 500 commits
• --check-zombies — flag AI commits unendorsed >30 days with no human follow-up

debt

git-cognitive debt [--interactive]

Flat table of all commits: SHA, classification, friction score, AI%, title, endorsement status.

endorse

git-cognitive endorse [<SHA>|HEAD]
git-cognitive endorse          # interactive TUI picker

Mark a commit as understood and vouched for. Pushes automatically.

TUI controls: ↑↓/jk navigate, e/Enter endorse, s git show, q quit.

show

git-cognitive show <SHA>|HEAD

Full activity item + endorsement history for a commit.

session

git-cognitive session <SHA>|HEAD

Shows the Claude conversation (prompts, responses, tool calls) captured for this commit's window.

push / pull

git-cognitive push
git-cognitive pull

Share cognitive debt data with your team via the cognitive-debt/v1 branch.

Classifications

Zombie detection

A zombie is an AI-attributed commit that:

1. Has been unendorsed for >30 days
2. Has had no human follow-up commit touching the same files

git-cognitive audit --check-zombies

Agent-Attribution trailer

Add to commit messages for precise attribution without relying on line matching:

feat: add payment processing flow

Agent-Attribution: 80%

Team workflow

# morning
git-cognitive pull
git-cognitive debt

# review queue
git-cognitive endorse

# weekly
git-cognitive audit --check-zombies

See also

git-semantic — semantic code search, sibling tool.

License

MIT OR Apache-2.0