Recommended Git commit message format

It is a good practice to write a detailed git commit message but very often we don’t write proper message but whenever we do not many follow a well defined format. Based on my reading and also peer feedback it is recommended to follow 50/72 Formatting while writing a git message.

Git Message have two parts

1. Message or Title – Recommended length is 50 character. This is a short summary of about your git change.
2. Detailed message – Recommended length is 72 per line. This is a detailed summary of what, why and how this change was done.

TICKET-123 MESSAGE (50 characters)

DETAILED MESSAGE GOES HERE (72 characters per line)

Avoid using this style of commit message

git commit -m "commit message"

Always use

git commit

If you have configured the default text editor for git, then the editor would open up.

git config --global core.editor vi

For vim and vi, we can make use of “:set textwidth=72” to configure the editor to automatically break line when the column counts reaches 72 in a line as you keep typing. This won’t break words so if you really have a long word/string greater than 72 characters, like for e.g., – URL that is over 72 characters would be allowed as it is.

vi ~/.vimrc

# Append these config
" Force to show status line always
set laststatus=2
" Turn syntax highlighting on.
syntax on
" Setting max text width per line. 
" This will automatically create new line when the cursor reaches 72
set tw=72
" Shows the line number and the column number in bottom status line
set ruler
" Default ruler format show line number and column number
" %17 -> Ruler length or width. Default value is 17
" %l -> line number, %c -> column number,
" %V -> virtual (or screen) column, matters for TAB and multibyte chars
" %p -> Percent value of position of cursor in the file. 
set rulerformat=%17(%l,%c%V\ %p%%%)

If you are using tmux or screen then you might need slightly different settings.

My conventions

Since we are include the ticket number 50 characters in “Message or title” is too little. I usually follow 72/72 rule instead of 50/72 rule. Git understand this format when you are raising PRs.

How does it look in Git?

Git pull request understands this and even the git commit message summary.

Reference

1. https://tbaggery.com/2008/04/19/a-note-about-git-commit-messages.html
2. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2290016/git-commit-messages-50-72-formatting
3. https://www.baeldung.com/linux/vim-find-full-path-current-file
4. https://vi.stackexchange.com/questions/27501/default-rulerformat
5. https://vimhelp.org/options.txt.html#%27rulerformat%27
6. https://codeyarns.com/tech/2010-11-28-vim-ruler-and-default-ruler-format.html
7. https://initialcommit.com/blog/git-commit-messages-best-practices
8. https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-write-better-git-commit-messages/