Examples

Tim Pope

Tim Pope (@tpope) is a prolific author of many popular Vim plugins. He outlined some best practices for "a well formed commit message" in this blog post.

To follow his advice, you can use the following configuration:

# Processes each non-empty line as an individual commit.
split_lines = false

# Rule: Description must start with the specified case.
# Options: 'any', 'lower', 'upper'.
description_case = "upper"

# Rule: Use the imperative mood in the description.
# Example: 'Fix bug' instead of 'Fixed bug'.
imperative = true

# Rule: Header length limit.
# A value of 0 disables the rule.
max_header_length = 50

# Rule: Body line length limit.
# A value of 0 disables the rule.
max_body_length = 72

Linus Torvalds

Linus Torvalds (@torvalds) is the principal author of the Linux kernel and the creator of Git. He wrote some thoughts on how to write a good commit message.

This configuration will ensure you follow his advice:

# Rule: Use the imperative mood in the description.
# Example: 'Fix bug' instead of 'Fixed bug'.
imperative = true

# Rule: Body line length limit.
# A value of 0 disables the rule.
max_body_length = 74

# Rule: No leading, trailing, or consecutive spaces.
whitespace = true