docs/COMMIT_MESSAGES.md
Any commit needs a helpful message. Mind the following guidelines when committing to any of Organic Maps repositories at GitHub.
Separate subject from body with a blank line.
Limit the subject line to 80 characters.
Prefix the subject line with one or more affected subsystem name in square brackets:
git log --oneline|egrep -o '\[[0-9a-z]*\]'|sort|uniq -c|sort -nr|less for ideas.Start a sentence with a capital letter.
Do not end the subject line with a period.
Do not put "gh-xx", "closes #xxx" in the subject line.
Use the imperative mood in the subject line.
Wrap the body to 80 characters or so.
Use the body to explain what and why vs. how.
Markdown is allowed in the body, but not in the subject line.
Link GitHub issues on the last lines:
Use your real name and real email address.
A template:
[subsystem] Summarize in 80 characters or less
More detailed explanatory text, if necessary.
Wrap it to 80 characters or so.
In some contexts, the first line is treated as the subject of the
commit, and the rest of the text as the body.
The blank line separating the summary from the body is critical
(unless you omit the body entirely); various tools like `log`,
`shortlog` and `rebase` can get confused if you run the two together.
Explain the problem that this commit is solving. Focus on why you
are making this change as opposed to how (the code explains that).
Are there side effects or other unintuitive consequences of this
change? Here's the place to explain them.
Further paragraphs come after blank lines.
- Bullet points are okay, too.
- Typically a hyphen or asterisk is used for the bullet, preceded
by a single space, with blank lines in between, but conventions
vary here.
Fixes: #123
Closes: #456
Needed for: #859
See also: #343, #789