Tip 4: Git Commit Templates & Conventional Commits

Git commit messages are important. We all know that, yet … in the heat of the moment, we’re prone to this non-sense:

git commit -m "stuff"

git commit -m "fix"

git commit -m "it'll work this time!"

Any of them look familiar? You bet your ass they do.

Adding a Git Commit Template

This is nice and easy. First, create a text file for your template inside your ~/.config/git directory (~/.git/ on macOS I think).

My Commit Template

Then update your Git configuration. You can do this one of 2 ways:

git config --global commit.template ~/.config/git/commit.txt

Or you can update your configuration file:

[commit]
template=~/.config/git/commit.txt

Conventional Commits

Now that you’ve got a simple template. What should you put there?

Let me introduce you to Conventional Commits.

You can find my template here.

The following is the summary and some examples from the website linked above.

Conventional Commits

The Conventional Commits specification is a lightweight convention on top of commit messages. It provides an easy set of rules for creating an explicit commit history; which makes it easier to write automated tools on top of. This convention dovetails with SemVer, by describing the features, fixes, and breaking changes made in commit messages.

The commit message should be structured as follows:

<type>[optional scope]: <description>

[optional body]

[optional footer(s)]

Examples

Commit message with description and breaking change footer

feat: allow provided config object to extend other configs

BREAKING CHANGE: `extends` key in config file is now used for extending other config files

Commit message with ! to draw attention to breaking change

refactor!: drop support for Node 6

Commit message with both ! and BREAKING CHANGE footer

refactor!: drop support for Node 6

BREAKING CHANGE: refactor to use JavaScript features not available in Node 6.

Commit message with no body

docs: correct spelling of CHANGELOG

Commit message with scope

feat(lang): add polish language

Commit message with multi-paragraph body and multiple footers

fix: correct minor typos in code

see the issue for details

on typos fixed.

Reviewed-by: Z
Refs #133