Jan 14, 2019 • 2 min read

Commit message format

Each commit message consists of a header, a body and a footer. The header has a special format that includes a type, an optional scope (when applicable) and a subject:

Without scope

<type>: <subject>
<BLANK LINE>
<body>
<BLANK LINE>
<footer>

With scope

<type>(<scope>): <subject>
<BLANK LINE>
<body>
<BLANK LINE>
<footer>

The header is mandatory and the scope of the header is optional.

Any line of the commit message cannot be longer 100 characters. This allows the message to be easier to read on GitHub as well as in various git tools.

Footer should contain a closing reference to an issue if any.

Samples:

docs(changelog): update change log to alpha.9

fix(release): need to depend on package

The version in our package.json gets copied to the one we publish, and users need the latest of these.

Revert

If the commit reverts a previous commit, it should begin with revert:, followed by the header of the reverted commit. In the body it should say: This reverts commit <hash>., where the hash is the SHA of the commit being reverted.

Type

Must be one of the following: build, chore, ci, docs, feat, fix, perf, refactor, revert, style, test

build: Changes that affect the build system or external dependencies (example scopes: gulp, npm, webpack)
chore: Other changes that don’t modify src or test file
ci: Changes to our CI configuration files and scripts (example scopes: Travis, Circle, etc)
docs: Documentation only changes
feat: A new feature
fix: A bug fix
perf: A code change that improves performance
refactor: A code change that neither fixes a bug nor adds a feature
revert: Reverts a previous commit
style: Changes that do not affect the meaning of the code (white-space, formatting, missing semi-colons, etc)
test: Adding missing tests or correcting existing tests

Subject

The subject contains succinct description of the change:

use the imperative, present tense: “change” not “changed” nor “changes”
don’t capitalize first letter
no dot (.) at the end

Body

Just as in the subject, use the imperative, present tense: “change” not “changed” nor “changes”. The body should include the motivation for the change and contrast this with previous behavior.

The footer should contain any information about Breaking Changes and is also the place to reference GitHub issues that this commit Closes.

Breaking Changes should start with the word BREAKING CHANGE: with a space or two newlines. The rest of the commit message is then used for this.

Good, better, best. Never let it rest. ‘Til your good is better and your better is best. - St. Jerome

Post by: Anonymoussc (@anonymoussc)