Have you ever read a commit message that left you wondering what the developer was thinking? Commit messages are often overlooked, but they play a crucial role in collaboration and project maintenance.
Do you care about your commit messages? You should. In this post, we'll dive into why good commit messages matter, explore tools to help craft them, and discuss how AI can assist in improving clarity and consistency.
1. Why Commit Messages Matter
In summary, commit messages are more than just a formality, they are an essential tool for keeping your project organized and making collaboration efficient. They serve as the foundation for collaboration, debugging, and documentation. Here’s how:
🤝 Collaboration: Help team members understand the context of changes made to the code. When working in a team, clear commit messages allow others to quickly grasp the intention behind a change, reducing misunderstandings and making collaboration smoother.
🔍 Debugging: During the debugging process, commit messages act as a vital reference to trace back issues. A well-written commit message provides insight into what was modified, which helps in identifying when and where problems were introduced.
📄 Documentation: Commit messages serve as a historical log for the project. As the project evolves, the commit history becomes a valuable resource, showing how the code has changed over time and providing context for future developers who may need to maintain or extend the project.
2. A Great Commit Message
A good commit message should prioritize clarity, context, and conciseness. It should clearly explain the change in a straightforward way, avoiding ambiguity. Focus on the "why" behind the change to provide context and explain the reasoning, not just the "what" was done.
Additionally, keep the title short (around or even under 50 characters) for a quick summary, and add further details in the body only when necessary to provide more context. Ensuring that your teammates and even your future self will thank you.
Good
feat: add user profile page for better account managementchore: upgrade react version to 19.0Fix typo in checkout process causing validation errorUpdate footer with new contact information per marketing team request
Bad
fixed issueUpdated UI elementswhoops, fixed the bug nowWIP, added a new feature[empty_message]
3. Tools for Crafting Better Commit Messages
There are a few different commit message conventions available (e.g conventionalcommits.org, and these can vary from company to company, each with its own set of rules and formats.
The primary goal of these conventions is to improve the readability and clarity of the project's commit history as we already talked about. Futhermore, to ensure a consistent message format, tools like Commitizen and Husky can be useful.
If you're VSCode user, consider installing the Git Blame extension (or GitLens). It's a great example of how clear and informative commit messages can benefit future developers. Those plugins shows who made a particular change, when it was made, and includes the commit message inline for quick reference.
This feature is incredibly useful when troubleshooting bugs or tracking the history of changes. Imagine you're hunting down a bug and suddenly realize - wait, that was me, three years ago?! Yes, three whole years! And no, you didn’t just time travel. This extension can reveal some pretty wild surprises 😂.
Futhermore, AI tools can greatly assist in crafting commit messages. If you're unsure what to write, simply ask an AI tool like ChatGPT. It can help you refine your thoughts, suggest clear phrasing, and ensure your message is easy to understand.
GitHub Copilot and Codeium already offer commit message suggestions based on file changes, saving time and maintaining relevance. These tools can generate messages automatically by analyzing the diffs in your code.
4. Wrapping Up
Commit messages might seem like a small detail that doesn’t always deserve our attention, but it’s important to remember that big things are often built from small, carefully crafted pieces. While I don’t want to dive into philosophy here, the real value often lies in the simple things. If we take care of the small details, everything else tends to fall into place.
So, take a moment to consider your commit messages as a small but meaningful investment in the future of your project. Ask yourself: Will my teammate understand this? Put yourself in their shoes and think about the message through their perspective. It’s a simple exercise, but it can make a world of difference, both in coding and in life.
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