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.
Example — fix: remove unused dependency lodash.camelcase
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.
Must be one of the following:
- feat: 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 libraries such as documentation generation.
The scope is optional and could be anything specifying place of the commit change. For example nsis, mac, linux, etc...
The subject contains succinct description of the change:
- use the imperative, present tense:
changenotchangednorchanges, - 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.
A detailed explanation can be found in this document.