Commit Guidelines

Abstract

Guidelines on how our git commit messages can be formatted.

This leads to more readable messages and a better project history.

Inspired by Sentry.

General Rules

  1. Separate subject from body with a blank line

  2. Limit the subject line to 70 characters

  3. Capitalize the subject line

  4. Do not end the subject line with a period

  5. Use the imperative mood in the subject line

  6. Use the body to explain what and why vs. how

  7. Each commit should be a single, stable change

Merge Vs Rebase

That means that every commit on its own should be a clear, functional, and stable change.

This means then when you are building a new feature, you should try to pare it down into functional steps, and when that’s not reasonable, the end patch should be a single commit.

This is counter to having a Pull Request which may include “fix unmerged behavior”.

Those commits should get squashed, and the final patch when landed should be rebased.

Remember: each commit should follow the commit message format and be stable (green build).

Rebase and Merge

The GitHub UI exposes a “Rebase and Merge” option, which, if your commits are already in following the commit guidelines, is a great way to bring your change into the codebase.

Commit Message Format

Commit messages should be short, clear and “to the point”.

[docs] Add docs about ttd-repo
[release] ttd-repo 0.0.8
[ttd-repo] Improve Dockerfile

Type

Must be one of the following:

[docs]

Documentation only changes

[ci]

Changes to our CI configuration files and scripts

[meta]

Some meta information in the repo changes (example scopes: owner files, editor config etc.)

[release]

Making a new release

[$CHECK]

Make clear for which check the commit is (examples: [ttd-repo], [ttd-tab] etc.)