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title="Permalink to this heading">#</a></h1> <p>Commit messages provide context to changes that a diff cannot convey by itself. They help other people understand changes, and document the reasons behind changes when coming back to them after months or years.</p> <p>This page provides general recommendations and guidelines that apply to most GNOME modules. Some modules have different or additional conventions, so it is recommended to check for project-specific documentation and look at existing commit messages before contributing.</p> <p>A more extensive documentation in line with the GNOME commit style including reasoning is available at <a class="reference external" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20231206233011/https://api.coala.io/en/latest/Developers/Writing_Good_Commits.html">the coala project</a>.</p> <section id="structure"> <h2>Structure<a class="headerlink" href="#structure" title="Permalink to this heading">#</a></h2> <p>Commit messages use the following structure:</p> <ol class="arabic simple"> <li><p>A brief description that summarizes the commit</p></li> <li><p>The main description (body)</p></li> <li><p>Links or references to related issues (optional)</p></li> </ol> <p>The different parts are separated by blank lines (two newlines).</p> <p>Dedicated tools like the <a class="reference external" href="https://apps.gnome.org/en/Commit/">Commit app</a> can help with the formatting.</p> </section> <section id="example"> <h2>Example<a class="headerlink" href="#example" title="Permalink to this heading">#</a></h2> <div class="highlight-text notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span>tag: Short explanation of the commit Longer explanation explaining exactly what's changed and why, whether any external or private interfaces changed, what issue were fixed (with issue number if applicable) and so forth. Be concise but not too brief. Closes #1234 </pre></div> </div> </section> <section id="summary-line"> <h2>Summary line<a class="headerlink" href="#summary-line" title="Permalink to this heading">#</a></h2> <ul class="simple"> <li><p>A summary of the change itself, not the issue or effects/benefits (that goes in the description).</p></li> <li><p>Always a single sentence with no trailing period (full stop).</p></li> <li><p>Be sure to not exceed 72 characters; you can use ‘&’ instead of ‘and’ so the message gets shorter.</p></li> <li><p>Uses imperative present tense. For example use “Add Hindi translation” instead of “Added Hindi translation”.</p></li> <li><p>You can prefix the first line with one tag, to make it easier to know to which part of the module the commit applies. For example, a commit with “sound: Fix label alignments” in the <a class="reference external" href="https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-control-center">Settings module</a> clearly applies to the sound panel.</p></li> </ul> </section> <section id="main-description"> <h2>Main description<a class="headerlink" href="#main-description" title="Permalink to this heading">#</a></h2> <ul class="simple"> <li><p>A detailed description of the change and the reasoning behind it. Consider the commit message as an email sent to the developers (or yourself, six months in the future) detailing <strong>why</strong> you changed something. There’s no need to specify the <strong>how</strong>: those who need to know can view the code changes alongside the commit message.</p></li> <li><p>Each line must not exceed 75 characters. There is no limit on the number of lines.</p></li> <li><p>Uses normal prose, punctuation and capitalization.</p></li> <li><p>If you use <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">git</span> <span class="pre">revert</span></code> command to undo a commit, git generates a default commit message specifying the hash and commit message of the commit you’re undoing, but this is not enough to know <em>why</em> you’re reverting it, so please add more comments to it.</p></li> </ul> </section> <section id="references"> <h2>References<a class="headerlink" href="#references" title="Permalink to this heading">#</a></h2> <ul> <li><p>If your commit is addressing an issue, use the <a class="reference external" href="https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/managing_issues.html#closing-issues-automatically">GitLab syntax</a> to automatically close the issue when merging the commit with the upstream repository:</p> <div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="n">Closes</span> <span class="c1">#1234</span> <span class="n">Fixes</span> <span class="c1">#1234</span> <span class="n">Closes</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="n">https</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="o">//</span><span class="n">gitlab</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">gnome</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">org</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">GNOME</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">gtk</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">issues</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mi">1234</span> </pre></div> </div> </li> <li><p>When committing code on behalf of others use the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">--author</span></code> option and add a Signed-off-by line with <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">--signoff</span></code>:</p> <div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="n">git</span> <span class="n">commit</span> <span class="o">-</span><span class="n">a</span> <span class="o">--</span><span class="n">author</span> <span class="s2">"Joe Coder <joe@coder.org>"</span> <span class="o">--</span><span class="n">signoff</span> </pre></div> </div> </li> </ul> </section> </section> </article> </div> <footer> <div class="related-pages"> <a class="next-page" href="building.html"> <div class="page-info"> <div class="context"> <span>Next</span> </div> <div class="title">Building</div> </div> <svg class="furo-related-icon"><use href="#svg-arrow-right"></use></svg> </a> <a class="prev-page" href="change-submission.html"> <svg class="furo-related-icon"><use href="#svg-arrow-right"></use></svg> <div class="page-info"> <div class="context"> <span>Previous</span> </div> <div class="title">Change Submission</div> </div> </a> </div> </footer> </div> <aside class="toc-drawer"> <div class="toc-sticky toc-scroll"> <div class="toc-title-container"> <span class="toc-title"> On this page </span> </div> <div class="toc-tree-container"> <div class="toc-tree"> <ul> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#">Commit Messages</a><ul> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#structure">Structure</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#example">Example</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#summary-line">Summary line</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#main-description">Main description</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#references">References</a></li> </ul> </li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> </aside> </div> </div><script data-url_root="../" id="documentation_options" src="../_static/documentation_options.js"></script> <script src="../_static/doctools.js"></script> <script src="../_static/sphinx_highlight.js"></script> <script src="../_static/scripts/furo.js"></script> </body> </html>