Semantic Commit Messages

semantic-commit-messages.md

Semantic Commit Messages

See how a minor change to your commit message style can make you a better programmer.

Format: <type>(<scope>): <subject>

<scope> is optional

Example

feat: add hat wobble
^--^  ^------------^
|     |
|     +-> Summary in present tense.
|
+-------> Type: chore, docs, feat, fix, refactor, style, or test.

More Examples:

• feat: (new feature for the user, not a new feature for build script)
• fix: (bug fix for the user, not a fix to a build script)
• docs: (changes to the documentation)
• style: (formatting, missing semi colons, etc; no production code change)
• refactor: (refactoring production code, eg. renaming a variable)
• test: (adding missing tests, refactoring tests; no production code change)
• chore: (updating grunt tasks etc; no production code change)

References:

• https://www.conventionalcommits.org/
• https://seesparkbox.com/foundry/semantic_commit_messages
• http://karma-runner.github.io/1.0/dev/git-commit-msg.html

@nicholaswmin Great points!

I agree that simplicity is essential, and processes shouldn’t be added without a good reason. While Conventional Commits offers a broad set of keywords to provide flexibility, it's worth considering whether a smaller, more essential subset could cover most cases without unnecessary overhead.

That said, it's important to recognize that Semantic Commit, as it stands today, may not be useful for all types of projects. There’s no silver bullet in software engineering—it’s up to each team to evaluate what truly adds value to their workflow. Dismissing the project as "cargo cult programming" might be unfair; we risk misjudging its real purpose or, worse, falling into a Dunning-Kruger effect, where a lack of deeper understanding leads to oversimplified conclusions.

I believe discussions like these are valuable for refining tools, but at the same time, sometimes debates about tooling create more noise than the tools themselves—lots of talk, little action. Personally, I prefer to focus on building rather than overanalyzing.

Thanks for the exchange of ideas!

Ok to make this clear:

• CC is good
• The keywords must be drastically reduced

"Dismissing the project as cargo cult programming"

I'm not dismissing the project itself as cargo cult programming; that doesn't make sense.
I'm dismissing the overzealous adoption of unnecessary procecess/tools/conventions prematurely, for no concrete reason other than "I also do that"

Curious what people do when more than one type of "thing" is done in a single commit. For instance, to polish up some python code before committing I ran RightTyper, Trunk format, and then added in some comments on the code.

"Learn to commit between each task" is good advice but sometimes that horse is already out of the barn.

nice script @cfgnunes; but you can also use pre-commit hook to enforce it.