Let's pick each other's brains for a sec.
Do you use past or imperative tense in your commit messages?
Past
added button to page
...
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I usually use the present tense. It sounds more natural when thinking in terms of "what does this specific commit do". I think of a commit is a snapshot of an event, rather than a fixed point in history or a changelog.
+1000 to this. It also lends itself to easier reading/scrolling through
git log. 👌I love these guidelines chris.beams.io/posts/git-commit/
”A properly formed Git commit subject line should always be able to complete the following sentence:
If applied, this commit will your subject line here
For example:
If applied, this commit will refactor subsystem X for readability”
Meaning imperative instead of present or past tense
The imperative is a mood not a tense! :) I use present tense and follow the Conventional Commits specification on most projects ("fix: disable current deployment type in index filters").
Here is a small statistic based on the Github commit messages:
Fix: 25M
Fixed: 12M
Fixing: 22M
Fixes: 23M
Add: 25M
Added: 22M
Adding: 19M
Update: 18M
Updated: 14M
Updating: 18M
Remove: 25M
Removed: 18M
Removing: 18M
Removal: 7M
Delete: 7M
Deleted: 8M
Deleting: 9M
We can see that the imperative is used a little more than the past tense.
Personally, I use past tense because it sounds more polite.
I usually follow the guidelines proposed here which I think they make valid points. See section 5: use the imperative mood in the subject line.
I also adhere to the Conventional Commits spec.
I'm using past tense (at least mostly) because the commit reflects something I did in the past. Seems natural to me this way...
I finish this sentence "If you pull this it ..."
i.e.
adds new feature to menu
updates readme
fixes broken sql
This is good.
Using imperatives is the official way of writing commit messages, as if each message were prefixed by "This commit will...". I personally prefer this as it's very straightforward and shortens some messages by a few characters.
From git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Distributed...
I was using past tense till I realized present simple is being used in GitHub, GitLab, and GitKraken commits (Add/Update README, Merge: foo, Revert: bar).
I like to use Imperative for consistency with Jira tickets.
I use present these.
For the title 3rd person singular, reffing to the commit as the object:
In the body I use second person singular, referring to the commit as the subject:
It depends on the level of my caffeine gauge
I'm very much a git newbie. I learned it a few months ago from Udacity and I believe the only directive given regarding commit messages was to use verbs! However, I regularly use the past tense when I write commit messages. This is because I look at my log when I try to think of what I did, so things like added, removed and fixed etc. But a lot of people have raised good points about using the present tense. I may make the switch in my next repo.
Imperative, because in theory, I could revert that commit that adds something later. Version control is a constant present state that can change freely. I'm unlikely to ever actually need change management on a personal project, but I do want to keep with the spirit of it all.
Though, admittedly, if I'm doing a bunch of stuff all at once that would be a mess to change later, I tend to past tense it like "Added this, updated README, bumped dependencies, changed this" because 1 commit with all that mess isn't ever getting reverted.
Because Tower and Git Kraken have character limits in subject lines...
I too am guilty of using emojis 😀 ie:
I also use shell cmd abbreviations:
I love Tower and Git Kraken because it's easy to select the specific lines to group LOC that is coherent to the given context of the commit.
In the commit body I try to use numbers as a convention:
ie:
Present continuous tense feels more natural to me.
E.g. "fixing blah blah..." Vs "fixed blah blah..." Or "fix blah blah...".
Reason is that it shows the original intent because really it's not "fixed" or is a "fix" until it has been reviewed, gone through automation and qa testing and finally merged.
Imperative. I don't know why, but I picked it up as the norm at some point.
This is a retroactive justification, but it seems natural to read each commit as though it's happening right now, or that the commit headline is the instruction and the code changes are carrying it out.
I usually do it in past tense because I kind of view it as a log of all the things I've gotten done. The same way if someone asked what you did today, you'd say "I went to the store, I gazed at some clouds, I worked out (lol)," if someone asks what I've gotten done on a project, I'd say I "added button to page."
Im🍐ative, like recipe steps.
It's usually less characters too.
I used past tense but after reading this I will use imperative
I favour past tense because you're describing what you did, not writing a @TODO telling someone what needs doing.
I name my commits after what they do. A commit that "adds a button to the page" or "resolves bug #1746"
For my WIP commits, I usually use the present tense, but when I squash them into proper "finished" commits, I will write the new commit message in the imperative mood.
In the beginning I was using past tense and tbh I wasn't even very consistent in writing my commit messages as well (I didn't know better, I guess). Meanwhile I'm using the imperative mood. :)
Imperative and the first letter capitalised. But sometimes I just write whatever I feel and put smiley faces or crying ones (not at work =P)
I'd never thought about this before but turns out I am completely inconsistent with it. Oops!
Imperative for simplicity and for non-english readers.
I was using past tense for a couple of years until I came across an article about how to write commit messages (P4 in my case). Since then, present tense has made more sense to me.