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Patrick Wendo
Patrick Wendo

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Why I enjoy conventional commits

If you don't know about conventional commits, I would ask you to check them out here, but the gist of it is that, it is a standard way to structure your commit messages such that they are easier to understand at a glance. For instance, say you removed some logs that you had lying around in your code base, instead of writing a commit saying

minor changes
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I normally write

chore(NameOfBranch): code cleanup, removing logs
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This makes it easier for the person reviewing the code to know that I was not implementing a feature, I was just removing the logs.

Similarly for a new feature you could have a commit message that says

feat(NameOfBranch): <an explanationon your feature>
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I find that this is more legible to track the progress of my work.

But why do I love conventional commits? Well its simple really, it makes me think just a bit harder about what I have done. It's a good mental check for me before I push my changes and open a PR. And I find that that pause to think moment really keeps me going.

Top comments (6)

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silviaespanagil profile image
Silvia España Gil

As for curiosity, in big projects with others, do you try to raise it to make it a convention so all the team use that kind of commits?

I think they are a good idea and I also find commits as a way of mental check

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w3ndo profile image
Patrick Wendo

I always try to make the team adopt conventional commits. But that's a bigger task than you'd expect.

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jessekphillips profile image
Jesse Phillips

Early in my version control days I didn't understand the advice to make good commit messages. I just thought you would try to summarize the changes happening. It became a pain because, you know I improved things (organize, add features, indent).

Git's history rewrite got so much flack, HG was better, you need a friendly ID. Nope, commit structure is valuable, it is the one human thing we have left in this world.

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jessekphillips profile image
Jesse Phillips

It allows me to work on multiple things at a time and even come back to things months later.

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w3ndo profile image
Patrick Wendo

It really helps. Getting the whole team to adopt takes time. People are comfortable with their ways but I find that as a junior developer it is in my best interest to try and help them adopt it.