How to Set a Default Commit Message

By  on  

Having a default commit message is really useful for a number of reasons:

  • It can formalize your commit messages
  • It serves as a good reminder for the information you should add to your commit message, like issue number
  • If you set it to "Drunk AF, don't accept this"

To set a default commit message on your local machine, start by executing the following from command line:

git config --global commit.template ~/.gitmessage

This tells your local git config to pull the text from ~/.gitmessage as the default commit message. You could set the text to something like:

Fix Issue #{number}: {description}

R+: {reviewer}

Of course, if you set your commit message via git commit -m {description}, the default will not be used, so it's a win-win!

Recent Features

  • By
    fetch API

    One of the worst kept secrets about AJAX on the web is that the underlying API for it, XMLHttpRequest, wasn't really made for what we've been using it for.  We've done well to create elegant APIs around XHR but we know we can do better.  Our effort to...

  • By
    LightFace:  Facebook Lightbox for MooTools

    One of the web components I've always loved has been Facebook's modal dialog.  This "lightbox" isn't like others:  no dark overlay, no obnoxious animating to size, and it doesn't try to do "too much."  With Facebook's dialog in mind, I've created LightFace:  a Facebook lightbox...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Create a 3D Panorama Image with A-Frame

    In the five years I've been at Mozilla I've seen some awesome projects.  Some of them very popular, some of them very niche, but none of them has inspired me the way the MozVR team's work with WebVR and A-Frame project have. A-Frame is a community project...

  • By
    Table Cell and Position Absolute

    If you follow me on Twitter, you saw me rage about trying to make position: absolute work within a TD element or display: table-cell element.  Chrome?  Check.  Internet Explorer?  Check.  Firefox?  Ugh, FML.  I tinkered in the console...and cussed.  I did some researched...and I...

Discussion

  1. Jake

    What if you want to include some of the lines from the default commit message in your template? One thing that is not indicated here is that the content of the default message is included with your template content (combined) when the actual commit template is displayed in the editor.

    See: commit.template section in https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Customizing-Git-Git-Configuration

    Or test it yourself..

    BUT! What if you need to change the order that the default commit message lines appear in your templated commit message? For example..

    The default git commit message (as of this date) is:
    =======================================================================

    # Please enter the commit message for your changes. Lines starting
    # with ‘#’ will be ignored, and an empty message aborts the commit.
    #
    # On branch master
    #
    # Initial commit
    #
    # Changes to be committed:
    # new file: blah
    #
    # ———————— >8 ————————
    # Do not modify or remove the line above.
    # Everything below it will be ignored.
    diff –git a/blah b/blah
    new file mode 100644
    index 0000000..e69de29

    =======================================================================

    But what if you need it to be:

    =======================================================================
    Changes to be committed: new file: blah
    On branch master

    Initial commit

    # ———————— >8 ————————
    # Do not modify or remove the line above.
    # Everything below it will be ignored.
    diff –git a/blah b/blah
    new file mode 100644
    index 0000000..e69de29

    =======================================================================

    Where “Initial commit” is included / omitted (as it normally is) based on whether it is the initial commit or not. In other words, you want to reformat the default commit message’ content so that when it is combined with your template it will read in the order and format that you want it.

    Is there a way to do this?

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!