Found a weird line of code? Ask why before you delete it.

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🤔 The problem

Every project has code like this:

time.sleep(37)          # ???
if user.id != 4012:     # don't ask
retries = 3  # was 5

You don't know why it's there. The person who wrote it left two years ago. If you delete it, maybe nothing happens, or maybe production breaks at 3 a.m.

The answer is almost always in the git history. It's buried in old commits, pull requests and reverts that nobody has time to dig through.

✨ What git-why does

git-why is a skill for Claude that does the digging for you. Ask in plain English:

"why is this sleep(37) here? can I remove it?"

Claude goes through the project's history like a detective and comes back with:

• 📜 The story: who added it, when, and why
• 🔗 The proof: the exact commit, PR or issue for every claim (no guessing)
• 🚦 A verdict: ✅ safe to change, ⚠️ be careful, or 🛑 keep it
• 🎯 A confidence level, so you know how much to trust the answer

🔍 A real example

We asked git-why about a strange rule in requests, the most popular Python HTTP library:

You: there's a weird special case in should_strip_auth that keeps the password header on http → https redirects. why? can I delete it?

git-why: Short answer: It's a deliberate compromise from 2018. A security fix (CVE-2018-18074) started removing passwords on redirects, but the maintainers kept this one case so that thousands of existing users wouldn't break.

Origin: commit 857e9b7a, merged in PR #4718, fixing issue #4716.

Proof: the PR discussion, the code comment, and a test called test_should_strip_auth_https_upgrade that checks exactly this.

Safe to change? ⚠️ Be careful. Deleting it won't make anything more secure, but it will break people's code and fail a test.

Confidence: High

It found all of that in about a minute.

🚀 Install (2 minutes)

1. Download it

git clone https://github.com/Haseeb35/git-why.git

2. Give it to Claude

Where you use Claude	What to do
Claude Code, all projects	Copy git-why/skills/git-why into ~/.claude/skills/
Claude Code, one project	Copy it into .claude/skills/ inside that project
Claude.ai / desktop app	Zip the skills/git-why folder and upload it in Settings → Capabilities → Skills

3. Ask a question. That's it. You don't need to mention git-why. Claude uses it automatically when you ask "why" about code.

You need: git and Python 3.8+. Optional: the GitHub CLI (gh), which lets Claude read PR discussions too.

💬 Things you can ask

• "Why is MAX_RETRIES set to 7?"
• "Who added this sleep(0.5) and why?"
• "Is it safe to delete legacy_login()?"
• "What was this commented-out block for?"
• "When did the timeout change from 30 to 60?"
• "I want to add a trusted_domains option. Has anyone tried this before?"

That last one is a favourite: git-why found that the exact feature had been added and then reverted years ago, and explained why.

🛡️ Is it safe?

Question	Answer
Will it change my code?	No. It only reads git history. It never edits files, commits, or switches branches.
Does it need an API key?	No. It runs inside Claude with your normal git.
Does it send my code anywhere new?	No. It uses only your local git, plus GitHub if you have gh set up.
Does it show people's emails?	No. Author emails are removed from everything it collects.
What if the history doesn't explain it?	It says so honestly instead of making up a story.

🧪 Tested, not just vibes

We tested git-why on six tricky real-world questions: magic numbers, deleted code, reverted features, and code hidden behind formatting commits. Each question was asked once with git-why and once without it.

	With git-why	Without
Correct, complete answers (smaller model)	100%	83%
Clear safe/unsafe verdict with confidence	every time	sometimes

The test cases live in skills/git-why/evals/ if you want to run them yourself.

🧰 Power users: use the digging script directly

The script behind git-why also works on its own, without Claude:

python skills/git-why/scripts/dig.py src/app.py --lines 120,134
python skills/git-why/scripts/dig.py src/app.py --function retry_upload
python skills/git-why/scripts/dig.py --pattern "LEGACY_AUTH_FALLBACK"

It prints an "evidence file": who touched the code, the commit that first added it, the PR it came from, reverts, related files and changelog mentions.

📁 What's inside

skills/git-why/
├── SKILL.md                    ← the instructions Claude follows
├── scripts/dig.py              ← the history-digging tool (read-only)
├── references/git-techniques.md  ← advanced tricks for hard cases
└── evals/                      ← test questions with expected answers

🤝 Contributing

Ideas and pull requests are welcome! Some good first contributions:

• Support for GitLab merge requests, Jira or Linear tickets
• Better function detection for more languages
• Share a cool "git-why found this" story in an issue

📄 License

MIT. Free to use, change and share.

_{Made with 🏺 by Haseeb. If git-why saved you from deleting something important, give it a ⭐}