DEV Community

Cover image for Patterns for writing better git commit messages

Patterns for writing better git commit messages

Helder Burato Berto on September 10, 2020

It's an opinionated guide I keep with me to consult every time I catch myself in doubt if I'm writing nice commit messages with context of what I'm...
Collapse
 
vishnuharidas profile image
Vishnu Haridas

Good ideas. Adding examples will be good to see.

Here are my rules that I stick on to:

  • Use simple present - Update login button to use the new API
  • Begin fixes with "Fix" and include ticket number if possible - Fix #234: User cannot log in with email
  • If pausing the work today and planning to continue tomorrow, start with [WIP] (Work-In-Progress) - [WIP] improving the login process
  • Begin temporary commits (usually for testing out something) with [TEMP] - [TEMP] add a temporary logout button
Collapse
 
helderberto profile image
Helder Burato Berto

Nice tips!
The unique one I try to maintain in the body is the ticket ID because in my case it's just to be tracked in Jira and isn't to be shown.

Collapse
 
billraymond profile image
Bill Raymond

These are great ideas. Could you consider a post with some solid examples to go with these practices?

Collapse
 
qoomon profile image
Bengt Brodersen
Collapse
 
billraymond profile image
Bill Raymond

Very nice. Thank you!

Collapse
 
helderberto profile image
Helder Burato Berto

Thanks for the feedback.
Yeah! I'm thinking to make a more structured post with these topics, I created this one as a note in my blog and just shared here to see opinions about it.

Collapse
 
billraymond profile image
Bill Raymond

Thanks!

Collapse
 
perpetual_education profile image
perpetual . education

We like to think:

"Derek was trying to ____________________________."

But our projects are green-field and not toooo crazy.

add the user-card component
adjust loud-voice clamp
add padding to the page-header component

Collapse
 
jacekgajek profile image
jacekgajek

I've created an account to give a like. This comment gave a good laugh; when I read it I initially though that the pattern is literally "Derek was trying to ____________________________."... if you know what I mean. ;)

Collapse
 
helderberto profile image
Helder Burato Berto

I have the same feeling here when I read the first time. hahaha

Collapse
 
perpetual_education profile image
perpetual . education

Like he couldn't think of anything?

Thread Thread
 
jacekgajek profile image
jacekgajek

...but did something regardless.

Thread Thread
 
perpetual_education profile image
perpetual . education

hahaha

Collapse
 
sheriffderek profile image
sheriffderek • Edited

My name is Derek - and I approve this git message. hahaha

I think we started doing this because / well, we just wanted to be consistent. So - we read somewhere that people use "imperative voice" or something...

But it wouldn't be the first time we decided to do something a certain way and then changed it... so, always looking for "THE BEST" way. ha! Always trying to improve... but we can lazy-load it.

Collapse
 
helderberto profile image
Helder Burato Berto

Thanks for the reply and I really enjoy this pattern you talked about.

Collapse
 
ibrokemycomputer profile image
Josh Martens

Verb tense in commit messages is always a fun one, and each "tense" has a reason (IMO.. comment away but I'm not passionate enough to debate)

Past: What happened to the code, good for merge
Present: Current state of the code, middle-ground for merge/PR
Future: What will happen to the code, good for PR

Collapse
 
jacekgajek profile image
jacekgajek • Edited

I's a nice idea to write good commit messages... but in the case of simple tasks it becomes more like "fix #851" which is picked by Jira or other tool automatically... so you can click on a message (if you use an IDE) and it takes you to the description.

One could copy the subject and description from Jira, but sometimes the fix is simple (like change + to - somewhere), but the bug is so weird that it's impossible to fit it in a commit message which wouldn't end up being cryptic. For example, in a situation when elephant extinction level goes down and it is a full moon, timestamps are shifted by a millisecond in systems which have an odd IP number.

Collapse
 
emjimadhu profile image
Em Ji Madhu

It was a great article. And it's informative. If you want to do it in gui and add emoji support too. I would recommend this vscode plugin

marketplace.visualstudio.com/items...

I have been using this extension for an year and is awesome.

Collapse
 
helderberto profile image
Helder Burato Berto

Thanks for the suggestion!
Some months ago I started using the Emacs + Magit and IMO it's awesome to use together.

Collapse
 
qoomon profile image
Bengt Brodersen

I absolutely agree to your approach. I've created a highly configurable commit message checker to ensure the right format and valid types and scopes. See github.com/qoomon/git-conventional....

Collapse
 
helderberto profile image
Helder Burato Berto

That's really nice, I'll check it.
Thanks for the share.

Collapse
 
tgotwig profile image
Thomas Gotwig • Edited

Don't forget to put an Emoji at the start of each commit 🧐🤪🚀

Collapse
 
helderberto profile image
Helder Burato Berto

Personally, I really like emojis hahahh

Collapse
 
karranb profile image
Karran Besen

Really useful article! I end up not focusing on the commit messages as much as I should. I'll try to follow these rules from now on.

Collapse
 
helderberto profile image
Helder Burato Berto

Thanks for the reply!
I'm glad the tips were helpful.

Collapse
 
alighali85 profile image
Ali Ghali

good to know, I am always curios to know how other people use git commits, isn't your approach (Angular convention)?
-BTW I checked your github, looks that you don't use your idea that much, is there cases where you think it's too much to nail a uniform commits?

Collapse
 
helderberto profile image
Helder Burato Berto

Thanks for the reply.
I commonly use the conventional rules, I think it's the same used as the angular convention.

In a repository like my dotfiles I keep in a different way, because I'm not working with a team and organize the commits based in the scopes without types, considering it's just me in the project I make a commits pattern that works for me, but it's very personal.

Collapse
 
duncandubblecloud profile image
duncan-dubblecloud

Great article.

Collapse
 
helderberto profile image
Helder Burato Berto

Thanks!

Collapse
 
lawson profile image
Lawson • Edited

Great

Collapse
 
helderberto profile image
Helder Burato Berto

Thanks!

Collapse
 
markestrada8 profile image
markestrada8

I'm trying to get the flow of this down atm, and I was wondering how these should be written. It makes sense, although I feel like to learn github you should really be on two computers at once, but as commits show up, this is a description of what a merge will do to your code base.

Collapse
 
hectorip profile image
Héctor Iván Patricio Moreno

Great article! Would you mind if I translate this to Spanish in my blog?

Collapse
 
helderberto profile image
Helder Burato Berto

I really appreciate that, no problem, just mention the original post. :)

Collapse
 
bsignx profile image
Bruno Mariano

Very nice! Parceiro.

Collapse
 
helderberto profile image
Helder Burato Berto

Obrigado! :)

Collapse
 
x1wins profile image
Chang-Woo Rhee

Cool!
I was add "ed" to type word
ex1) Fixed pagination gem bug
ex2) Changed pagination1 gem to pagination2 gem
i think your format is pretty and cool

Collapse
 
andrewbaisden profile image
Andrew Baisden

Good article thanks for sharing these tips.

Collapse
 
helderberto profile image
Helder Burato Berto

Thanks! :)

Collapse
 
jannikwempe profile image
Jannik Wempe

Great, thanks. I personally would appreciate 2-3 examples for clarification 😊

Collapse
 
helderberto profile image
Helder Burato Berto

Nice to know that! I'll share more examples to clarify.
Thanks for your reply.