git

Git Rules

Commits

Timing

• Only commit when explicitly requested
• Never ask about committing - wait for the request

Format

<Summary>

[optional body]

[optional footer(s)]

Summary Line

• MUST start with a capital letter
• Maximum 50 characters total
• Use imperative mood ("Add" not "Adds" or "Added")
• Be specific and concise
• No period at the end

Body

• Optional but encouraged for non-trivial changes
• Wrap at 80 characters
• Use bullet points for multiple items
• Explain what and why, not how
• Separate from summary with a blank line

Commit Command Best Practices

• NEVER use multi-line commands with -m flags in the terminal
• Instead, use one of these approaches:
  1. Create a temporary file with your message and use git commit -F filename.txt
  2. Use git commit without -m to open the editor for multi-line messages
  3. Use the .gitmessage template with git commit -t .gitmessage
• For simple one-line commits, use git commit -m "Summary" (no body)

Examples

Good:

Add score badges to found words

- Display point value next to each word in the found words list
- Use yellow background for pangrams, blue for regular words
- Right-align score values for better readability

Bad:

updated the game controls and fixed some bugs in the UI that were causing issues with the display of the score which was not aligned properly and had wrong colors for pangrams

Branch Names

• Use kebab-case
• Start with category (feature/, bugfix/, etc)
• Include issue number if applicable
• Be descriptive but concise

Example: feature/score-badges-123