Committing guidelines

Commit messages are the only opportunity to give people the context of what you are adding to our codebase. These are some guidelines to make sure everyone is using them the same way.

Word limit

Only commit titles are restricted to 50 words per line. It’s much easier on terminal interfaces, and also encourages you to write more concise commit titles.

Subject line format

Your subject line should be a specific summary of the changes made. Be concise, and refrain from referring to things that are irrelevant to the commit. Give as much context as you can; additional context can go in the commit body.

Good:

Add the user's fetch information in a global multidimensional array instead of a local one.

Bad:

Fixed scope bugs.

Commit body format

Be descriptive and reduce verbosity in bodies. Commit bodies can have any arbitrary number of lines.

1. Use standard markdown, don’t mix styles. Check a markdown cheatsheet before committing if you’re not sure.

2. Include relevant information and context where you can, to allow us to quickly see the purpose of the commit. Don’t be too verbose - be specific and concise.

3. Write in the infinitive, not in the past - i.e. write "Add user details to global scope and fetch on load" rather than "Added user details to global scope and fetched on load"

If your change is small enough to not have a commit body, i.e. your subject line can describe your changes, then it’s okay to commit without one. If you’re making significant changes that require more explanation then you must include the commit body.