I find it very useful to prefix my commits with a verb that specifies the type of commit I made. This makes it much easier for me to find out at a glance what a commit has done.

This is generally common practice from what I’ve seen in open source software. An example commit would be ==Fix the user lookup function so that deactivated users are returned as well==

Here are the examples of my prefixes and what I mean by them

  • Fix = Make a change that corrects a problem
  • Update = Make a change to outdated information
  • Add = Insert new functionality that was not previously there
  • Change = Modify existing information or application state, even though the previous state was correct. I would use this prefix for aesthetic changes, refactoring, idiomising code or performance increase changes.
  • Remove = Take out any information or code that is obsolete and no longer needed.

January 1, 2014


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