I review my old Git commit messages 🤦‍♂️

Before you start… If you don't even know Git yet, let alone how to write good commit messages, check out these videos to learn the basics: Learn Git and Github Part 1 Learn Git and Github Part 2

I dig deep into my GitHub account and evaluate some of my commit messages. Learn from my mistakes to start writing better commit messages. Your colleagues will love you, and you’ll immediately become the life of every party (once parties are a thing people do again). 🎉

The criteria I used to evaluate these come from an excellent article by Chris Beam called How to Write a Git Commit Message.

Here are Chris’s 7 tips:

1. Separate subject from body with a blank line
2. Limit the subject line to 50 characters
3. Capitalize the subject line
4. Do not end the subject line with a period
5. Use the imperative mood in the subject line
6. Wrap the body at 72 characters
7. Use the body to explain what and why vs. how

Now that you know how to write an incredible commit message, you just need some commits to test out your new skills on. Grab my project starter kit to get up and running on a project. Start making those commits!

Comments

[Nick Shattuck]

I think I have an old commit message buried on one of my old school projects that was literally "Updated some stuff and added some things".