Git Commit Message Conventions

Goals

  • allow generating CHANGELOG.md by script

  • allow ignoring commits by git bisect (not important commits like formatting

  • provide better information when browsing the history

Generating CHANGELOG.md

We use these three sections in changelog: new features, bug fixes, breaking changes. This list could be generated by script when doing a release. Along with links to related commits. Of course you can edit this change log before actual release, but it could generate the skeleton.

List of all subjects (first lines in commit message) since last release:

git log HEAD --pretty=format:%s

New features in this release

git log HEAD --grep feature Recognizing unimportant commits These are formatting changes (adding/removing spaces/empty lines, indentation), missing semi colons, comments. So when you are looking for some change, you can ignore these commits - no logic change inside this commit.

When bisecting, you can ignore these by:

git bisect skip $(git rev-list --grep irrelevant HEAD)

Provide more information when browsing the history

This would add kinda “context” information.

Look at these messages (taken from last few angular’s commits):

  • Fix small typo in docs widget (tutorial instructions)

  • Fix test for scenario.Application - should remove old iframe

  • docs - various doc fixes

  • docs - stripping extra new lines

  • Replaced double line break with single when text is fetched from Google

  • Added support for properties in documentation

All of these messages try to specify where is the change. But they don’t share any convention...

Look at these messages:

  • fix comment stripping

  • fixing broken links

  • Bit of refactoring

  • Check whether links do exist and throw exception

  • Fix sitemap include (to work on case sensitive linux)

Are you able to guess what’s inside? These messages miss place specification...

So maybe something like parts of the code: docs, docs-parser, compiler, scenario-runner, …

I know, you can find this information by checking which files had been changed, but that’s slow. And when looking in git history I can see all of us tries to specify the place, only missing the convention.

Format of the commit message:

<type>(<scope>): <subject>
<BLANK LINE>
<body>
<BLANK LINE>
<footer>

Any line of the commit message cannot be longer 100 characters! This allows the message to be easier to read on github as well as in various git tools.

A commit message consists of a header, a body and a footer, separated by a blank line.

Revert

If the commit reverts a previous commit, its header should begin with revert:, followed by the header of the reverted commit. In the body it should say: This reverts commit <hash>., where the hash is the SHA of the commit being reverted.

Message header

The message header is a single line that contains succinct description of the change containing a type, an optional scope and a subject.

Allowed <type>

This describes the kind of change that this commit is providing.

  • feat (feature)

  • fix (bug fix)

  • docs (documentation)

  • style (formatting, missing semi colons, …)

  • refactor test (when adding missing tests)

  • chore (maintain)

Allowed <scope>

Scope can be anything specifying place of the commit change. For example $location, $browser, $compile, $rootScope, ngHref, ngClick, ngView, etc...

You can use * if there isn't a more fitting scope.

<subject> text

This is a very short description of the change.

  • use imperative, present tense: “change” not “changed” nor “changes”

  • don't capitalize first letter

  • no dot (.) at the end

Message body

  • just as in use imperative, present tense: “change” not “changed” nor “changes”

  • includes motivation for the change and contrasts with previous behavior

  • useful [Link] 1

  • useful [Link] 2

Message footer

Breaking changes

All breaking changes have to be mentioned as a breaking change block in the footer, which should start with the word BREAKING CHANGE: with a space or two newlines. The rest of the commit message is then the description of the change, justification and migration notes.

BREAKING CHANGE: isolate scope bindings definition has changed 
    and the inject option for the directive controller injection was removed.

    To migrate the code follow the example below:

    Before:

    scope: {
      myAttr: 'attribute',
      myBind: 'bind',
      myExpression: 'expression',
      myEval: 'evaluate',
      myAccessor: 'accessor'
    }
    
    After:
    
    scope: {
      myAttr: '@',
      myBind: '@',
      myExpression: '&',
      // myEval - usually not useful, but in cases where the expression is assignable, you can use '='
      myAccessor: '=' // in directive's template change myAccessor() to myAccessor
    }
    
    The removed `inject` wasn't generaly useful for directives so there should be no code using it.

Referencing issues

Closed bugs should be listed on a separate line in the footer prefixed with "Closes" keyword like this:

Closes #234

or in case of multiple issues:

Closes #123, #245, #992

Examples

feat($browser): onUrlChange event (popstate/hashchange/polling)

Added new event to $browser:
- forward popstate event if available
- forward hashchange event if popstate not available
- do polling when neither popstate nor hashchange available

Breaks $browser.onHashChange, which was removed (use onUrlChange instead)

fix($compile): couple of unit tests for IE9

Older IEs serialize html uppercased, but IE9 does not...
Would be better to expect case insensitive, unfortunately jasmine does
not allow to user regexps for throw expectations.

Closes #392
Breaks foo.bar api, foo.baz should be used instead

feat(directive): ng:disabled, ng:checked, ng:multiple, ng:readonly, ng:selected

New directives for proper binding these attributes in older browsers (IE).
Added coresponding description, live examples and e2e tests.

Closes #351

style($location): add couple of missing semi colons

docs(guide): updated fixed docs from Google Docs

Couple of typos fixed:
- indentation
- batchLogbatchLog -> batchLog
- start periodic checking
- missing brace

feat($compile): simplify isolate scope bindings

Changed the isolate scope binding options to:
  - @attr - attribute binding (including interpolation)
  - =model - by-directional model binding
  - &expr - expression execution binding

This change simplifies the terminology as well as
number of choices available to the developer. It
also supports local name aliasing from the parent.

BREAKING CHANGE: isolate scope bindings definition has changed and
the inject option for the directive controller injection was removed.

To migrate the code follow the example below:

Before:

scope: {
  myAttr: 'attribute',
  myBind: 'bind',
  myExpression: 'expression',
  myEval: 'evaluate',
  myAccessor: 'accessor'
}

After:

scope: {
  myAttr: '@',
  myBind: '@',
  myExpression: '&',
  // myEval - usually not useful, but in cases where the expression is assignable, you can use '='
  myAccessor: '=' // in directive's template change myAccessor() to myAccessor
}

The removed `inject` wasn't generaly useful for directives so there should be no code using it.
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