In our projects we adapted Commit Guidelines, with more or less standard variation of Angular Commit Guidelines. It deliver what it promise,
This leads to more readable messages that are easy to follow when looking through the project history. But also, we use the git commit messages to generate the change log.
Since we adapt such guidelines, I have discovered one powerful effect on a developer growth.
It's how you start thinking about code changes you commit to code base. Following questions starts to bubbling inside your head,
- Does this change belong to this commit?
- What's clear intent of your changes in?
- What's reasoning and thoughts I can put in message?
And etc.
What happens now is that each commit is representing some type of change, with describing clear intent encapsulated inside of commit message.
Suddenly, you start reading git log (yes, for real), and if you need to do comparison between log histories you can do this by simply looking at the titles of commit messages.
Here's one example,
$ git log --pretty="%n %s" --name-only
test: has Cancel button, to check both confirm branches
cypress/integration/FunctionalTesting_Suite/CompanyProfilePage/company_profile_page.spec.js
refactor: move Cancel button to CompanyProfile components
src/components/CompanyProfile/CancelButtonWithConfirmation.scss
src/components/CompanyProfile/CancelButtonWithConfirmation.tsx
src/components/CompanyProfile/CancelButtonWithConfirmationContainer.tsx
src/pages/CompanyProfile/CompanyProfile.tsx
feat: Employer - Company profile page Cancel button
src/pages/CompanyProfile/CancelButtonWithConfirmation.scss
src/pages/CompanyProfile/CancelButtonWithConfirmation.tsx
src/pages/CompanyProfile/CancelButtonWithConfirmationContainer.tsx
src/pages/CompanyProfile/CompanyProfile.tsx
In git log you can tell, that I finished feature, did some refactoring, and added integration tests afterwards. That was thoughtful workflow.
Can you tell the same story, by looking at example below?
$ git log --pretty="%n %s" --name-only
Changed scss
src/pages/CompanyProfile/CancelButtonWithConfirmation.scss
Add Cancel button
src/pages/CompanyProfile/CancelButtonWithConfirmation.scss
OK it doesn't work, forgot component. LOL
src/pages/CompanyProfile/CancelButtonWithConfirmation.scss
src/pages/CompanyProfile/CancelButtonWithConfirmation.tsx
Tests
src/pages/CompanyProfile/CancelButtonWithConfirmationContainer.tsx
src/pages/CompanyProfile/CompanyProfile.tsx
cypress/integration/FunctionalTesting_Suite/CompanyProfilePage/company_profile_page.spec.js
Is it working yet?
src/pages/CompanyProfile/CompanyProfile.tsx
Of course, you may not look at this without crying. You may end up, shamefully do git rebase to squash your commits to hide your crimes of uncertainty.
To start adopting commit guidelines, I would recommend to look at this project http://commitizen.github.io/cz-cli/
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