Git Usage

• 1. Writing commits
  • 1.1 Types
  • 1.2 Scope (optional)
  • 1.3 Subject
  • 1.4 Body (optional)
• 2. Examples
• 3. Specification
• 3. Additional Reading

1. Writing commits

Commits should be informative and specific, targetting specific files with details on what they’re doing.

On projects with our full linting setup, there will be a commit linter which will prevent you from being able to make commits unless it follows specific conventions. It can’t enforce everything below, but

<type>([optional scope]): <subject>

[optional body]

[optional footer]

Examples can be found below.

1.1 Types

• feat: A new feature (this correlates with MINOR in semantic versioning)
• fix: A bug fix (this correlates with PATCH in semantic versioning).
• docs: Documentation only changes
• style: Changes that dont affect the meaning of the code (white-space formatting, etc)
• refactor: A code change that neither fixes a bug nor adds a feature
• perf: A code change that improves performance
• test: Adding missing or correcting existing tests
• chore: Changes to the build process or auxiliary tools and libraries (exampl* scopes: gulp, broccoli, npm)
• ci: Changes to our CI configuration files and scripts (example scopes: Travis, Circle, BrowserStack, SauceLabs)

1.2 Scope (optional)

• The module/scope that your commit targets.

1.3 Subject

• use imperative, present tense: “change”, not “changed” or “changes”
• don’t capitalize first letter
• no period at the end

1.4 Body (optional)

Can be used to describe the commit in more detail. To add a body, hit return twice while typing your commit in, like this

git commit -m "feat: example commit (hit return twice)

BREAKING CHANGE: Talk about what the breaking change is here." (return again to close out your commit)

The body can have some nifty integrations with other tools to make things easier:

• Github can automatically close related issues if you include closes in the body. For example, writing closes: #123 will automagically close issue #123 in Github. The colon is optional, but the # is not. For multiple issues, just write closes #123, closes #456. The separations aren’t important, just the presence of closes.

• BREAKING CHANGE: indicates that you’re introducing a breaking API change (i.e., a MAJOR semvar update). BREAKING CHANGE: must be followed with an explanation

2. Examples

Commit message with description and breaking change in body

feat: allow provided config object to extend other configs

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

Closes DIC-34

Commit message with no body

docs: correct spelling of CHANGELOG

Commit message with scope

feat(lang): add polish language

Commit message for a fix using an (optional) issue number

fix: minor typos in code

see the issue for details on the typos fixed

Closes #12

3. Specification

Taken from Conventional Commits.

The key words “MUST”, “MUST NOT”, “REQUIRED”, “SHALL”, “SHALL NOT”, “SHOULD”, “SHOULD NOT”, “RECOMMENDED”, “MAY”, and “OPTIONAL” in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.

1. Commits MUST be prefixed with a type, which consists of a noun, feat, fix, etc., followed by a colon and a space.
2. The type feat MUST be used when a commit adds a new feature to your application or library.
3. The type fix MUST be used when a commit represents a bug fix for your application.
4. An optional scope MAY be provided after a type. A scope is a phrase describing a section of the codebase enclosed in parenthesis, e.g., fix(parser):
5. A description MUST immediately follow the type/scope prefix. The description is a short description of the code changes, e.g., fix: array parsing issue when multiple spaces were contained in string.
6. A longer commit body MAY be provided after the short description, providing additional contextual information about the code changes. The body MUST begin one blank line after the description.
7. A footer MAY be provided one blank line after the body. The footer SHOULD contain additional issue references about the code changes (such as the issues it fixes, e.g.,Fixes #13).
8. Breaking changes MUST be indicated at the very beginning of the footer or body section of a commit. A breaking change MUST consist of the uppercase text BREAKING CHANGE, followed by a colon and a space.
9. A description MUST be provided after the BREAKING CHANGE:, describing what has changed about the API, e.g., BREAKING CHANGE: environment variables now take precedence over config files.
10. The footer MUST only contain BREAKING CHANGE, external links, issue references, and other meta-information.
11. Types other than feat and fix MAY be used in your commit messages.

3. Additional Reading

• Commit lint rules
• Codfish git reference
• Conventional Commits