Commit Style Guide

Git Commit Message Style Guide

Commit Messages

Message Structure

A commit messages consists of three distinct parts separated by a blank line: the title, an optional body and an optional footer. The layout looks like this:

type: subject

body

footer

The title consists of the type of the message and subject.

The Type

The type is contained within the title and can be one of these types:

feat: a new feature
fix: a bug fix
docs: changes to documentation
style: formatting, missing semi colons, etc; no code change
refactor: refactoring production code
test: adding tests, refactoring test; no production code change
chore: updating build tasks, package manager configs, etc; no production code change

The Subject

Subjects should be no greater than 50 characters, should begin with a capital letter and do not end with a period.

Use an imperative tone to describe what a commit does, rather than what it did. For example, use change; not changed or changes.

The Body

Not all commits are complex enough to warrant a body, therefore it is optional and only used when a commit requires a bit of explanation and context. Use the body to explain the what and why of a commit, not the how.

When writing a body, the blank line between the title and the body is required and you should limit the length of each line to no more than 72 characters.