To ensure consistency throughout the source code, keep these rules in mind as you are working:
- All features or bug fixes must be tested.
- All files must pass rubocop styleguide
We have very precise rules over how our git commit messages can be formatted. This leads to more readable messages that are easy to follow when looking through the project history. But also, we use the git commit messages to generate the change log.
Each commit message consists of a header, a body and a footer. The header has a special format that includes a type, a scope and a subject:
<type>(<scope>): <subject>
<BLANK LINE>
<body>
<BLANK LINE>
<footer>
The header is mandatory and the scope of the header is optional.
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.
Ammends are only allowed in 1 of 2 cases:
- If it is a hotfix commit straight to develop, only do amends when commit is not pushed.
- If it is on a feature branch, amends are always allowed
If the commit reverts a previous commit, it 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.
Must be one of the following:
- feature: A new feature
- fix: A bug fix
- docs: Documentation only changes
- style: Changes that do not affect the meaning of the code (white-space, formatting, missing semi-colons, etc)
- refactor: A code change that neither fixes a bug nor adds a feature
- perf: A code change that improves performance
- test: Adding missing tests
- chore: Changes to the build process or auxiliary tools and gems
The scope could be anything specifying place of the commit change. For example asset_tracker,
customer.rb, device_manager, missing_transactions, credit_transactions, customer_area, admin_panel, etc...
The subject contains succinct description of the change:
- use the imperative, present tense: "change" not "changed" nor "changes"
- don't capitalize first letter
- no dot (.) at the end
Just as in the subject, use the imperative, present tense: "change" not "changed" nor "changes". The body should include the motivation for the change and contrast this with previous behavior.
The footer should contain any information about Breaking Changes and is also the place to reference GitHub issues that this commit Closes.
Breaking Changes should start with the word BREAKING CHANGE: with a space or two newlines. The rest of the commit message is then used for this.