How to sign-off commits

We require a sign-off commit message in the following format on each commit in pull request.

This is a commit message.

Signed-off-by: Author Name <[email protected]>

How to sign-off new commits

In a local Git environment, the sign-off message can be added to a commit either manually (as a text) or via the -s flag used with the “git commit” command, for example:

git commit -s -m "My commit message"

To avoid manually adding the flag for each commit, we recommend setting up a Git hook with the following steps:

1. Navigate to the <openvino repository root>/.git/hooks folder.
2. Open the prepare-commit-msg.sample file and paste the following content:

#!/bin/sh

COMMIT_MSG_FILE=$1
COMMIT_SOURCE=$2
SHA1=$3

NAME=$(git config user.name)
EMAIL=$(git config user.email)

if [ -z "$NAME" ]; then
    echo "empty git config user.name"
    exit 1
fi

if [ -z "$EMAIL" ]; then
    echo "empty git config user.email"
    exit 1
fi

git interpret-trailers --if-exists doNothing --trailer \
    "Signed-off-by: $NAME <$EMAIL>" \
    --in-place "$1"

3. Save the file with the name prepare-commit-msg (remove the .sample extension).
4. Make the file executable (on Linux / Git Bash: chmod +x <openvino repository root>/.git/hooks/prepare-commit-msg).

Note: For both sign-off approaches, ensure your user name and email address are configured in Git first:

git config user.name 'FIRST_NAME LAST_NAME'
git config user.email '[email protected]'

Sign-off web-based commits

To enable automatic sign-off of commits made via GitHub web interface, make sure that Require contributors to sign off on web-based commits setting is selected in the Settings menu of your OpenVINO repository fork.

How to sign-off older commits in the history

If you forget to add the sign-off to your last commit, you can amend it and force-push to GitHub:

git commit --amend --signoff

To sign off on even older commits, use an interactive rebase, edit unsigned commits, and execute git commit --amend --signoff for each. However, please note that if others have already started working based on the commits in this branch, this will rewrite history and may cause issues for collaborators.