Writing useful commit comments

Some thoughts on writing useful [concise, descriptive, contextual] commit comments. Applies to all SCM systems (Git, Subversion, etc.)

A properly formed Git commit subject line should always be able to complete the following sentence:

• If applied, this commit will your subject line here

For example:

• If applied, this commit will refactor subsystem X for readability
• If applied, this commit will update getting started documentation
• If applied, this commit will remove deprecated methods
• If applied, this commit will release version 1.0.0
• If applied, this commit will merge pull request #123 from user/branch

- Chris Beam