The Lost Art of Commit Messages

You get some of this for free if you create branches and squash merge them when finished. Without needing to think much about commit message, just a few words per commit is enough. This is good enough for me and I don't need to waste any time thinking about it.

Example commits of something I worked on a few days back:

  $ git l feature/character-selection

  c54825f 3 days ago   Robert Schaap   (feature/character-selection) Simplify color picker, fetch current color
  d512569 3 days ago   Robert Schaap   Fix recolor for female, clean up files
  6d05ce4 3 days ago   Robert Schaap   Add color picker to change shirt color
  441180b 3 days ago   Robert Schaap   Show male in editor
  17045dc 3 days ago   Robert Schaap   Remove old character
  95772ff 3 days ago   Robert Schaap   Add characters

Then when I squash merged it I ended up with this commit message:

  $ git show HEAD~1

  commit be50e0d701d565cebdf4f29e0c9d8030a1a8faf7
  Author: Robert Schaap
  Date:   Mon Mar 24 21:29:20 2025 +0100

    Character selection (#14)

    * Add characters

    * Remove old character

    * Show male in editor

    * Add color picker to change shirt color

    * Fix recolor for female, clean up files

    * Simplify color picker, fetch current color

Re: The Lost Art of Commit Messages

#5

Post by fiskfiskfisk » Tue, Mar 25, 2025, 8:16 AM UTC

And please include the why.

From the article: "- adjust timeout settings to prevent crashes". Include the details of why the timeout setting lead to crashes; what were the inputs and the cases that caused this.

This lets us decide whether the fix stays or goes the next time there is an issue in the same piece of code, or your commit broke something unrelated - the person fixing it needs to know _why_ you changed the code.

Re: The Lost Art of Commit Messages

#6

Post by tobyhinloopen » Tue, Mar 25, 2025, 8:17 AM UTC

--message "wip"

Why do we care about commit messages? I only read them when rebasing.

Re: The Lost Art of Commit Messages

#7

Post by lima » Tue, Mar 25, 2025, 8:17 AM UTC

One of the best things about Gerrit - besides stacking and turn-by-turn review - is how it emphasizes good commit messages by making them part of the process.

Each commit becomes one "unit of review", and the commit message can be reviewed just like the code changes.

Re: The Lost Art of Commit Messages

#8

Post by rollcat » Tue, Mar 25, 2025, 8:21 AM UTC

Depends. Sometimes a one-liner or a reference to a ticket is enough.

There are times when I make a one-line change and write a paragraph or two explaining why it had to be done. But these kinds of things often drown in the noise of a dozen other changes. If that one was important enough, I will reference it in an ongoing discussion or documentation, or at least include "read below:" on the first line.

I usually see people include a more elaborate commentary with the pull request. If the changeset is good but the series of individual commits is a bit messy, just merge by squashing.

(Also: this comment is meta.)

Re: The Lost Art of Commit Messages

#9

Post by ziofill » Tue, Mar 25, 2025, 8:22 AM UTC

Wow, thanks for this page, I can almost take it as-is and create a Cursor rule for writing commit messages ^^’

Re: The Lost Art of Commit Messages

#10

Post by kqr » Tue, Mar 25, 2025, 8:22 AM UTC

rejschaap wrote: post #4

You get some of this for free if you create branches and squash merge them when finished. Without needing to think much about commit message, just a few words per commit is enough. This is good enough for me and I don't need to waste any time thinking about it. Example commits of something I worked on a few days back: $ git l feature/character-selection c54825f 3 days ago Robert Schaap (feature/character-selection) S…

Granted, I'm not the target audience of your commit messages, but they tell me very little about what happens.

> Add characters

I can probably tell from the code that that's what's happening. But what requirements drove these particular characters?

> Remove old character

What makes it old? How would I recognise an old character in the future?

> Show male in editor

Why did male not show before? Was there a bug or a partially implemented feature?

> Fix recolor for female, clean up files

What does it mean to "fix recolor"? And even worse, what is "clean up files"? What requirements drove this file cleaning? Why were the files unclean in the first place?

etc. Commit messages in the style of "fix X" or "add Y" or "remove Z" or "nondescript action on W" are the bane of my existence. They seem so meaningful but they don't tell me anything when I'm trying to trace why a particular bug was introduced – or whether it's even a bug in the first place.