I need to contemplate about (not) using standards Commit Messages and Commit Emojis
Posted by jpluimers on 2024/08/27
These Tweets from Kris are food for thought about using standards for Commit Messages and Commit Emojis.
It is the “writing zzzz by convention” mantra all over the place (where zzzz can be anything from code to documentation): does it add value, should it be formalised, can it by achieved by other means?
I need to think about it later, so I saved his tweets below:
- [Wayback/Archive] Friday Rant.
gitmoji.devStep 1: Haha, a standard for Emoji in Git Commit messages and what they mean! Step 2: OMG, they are serious!
[Wayback/Archive] gitmoji | An emoji guide for your commit messages
- [Wayback/Archive]
conventionalcommits.org/en/v1.0.0/Step 1: Haha, a standard for the text content of Git Commit messages and what they mean! Step 2: OMG, they are serious!
[Wayback/Archive] Conventional Commits
The Conventional Commits specification is a lightweight convention on top of commit messages. It provides an easy set of rules for creating an explicit commit history; which makes it easier to write automated tools on top of. This convention dovetails with SemVer, by describing the features, fixes, and breaking changes made in commit messages.
[Wayback/Archive] Semantic Versioning 2.0.0 | Semantic Versioning
- [Wayback/Archive] So you are a developer and you recognize a defect in the product you are using. “As a developer, I want to add arbitrary parseable metadata to commit messages to be able to filter and classify relevant commits from the larger repo.“
- [Wayback/Archive] And you reaction is not to break out planning and development tools and fix the defect, but to write standards to encode this inline in text and cute emoji. That not how to get to Staff+ level.
- [Wayback/Archive] Rant needs this Emoji.
Especially the italic User story bit in the Connextra Format rang a bell, as there too is controversy:
- [Wayback/Archive] “As a, I want, So that” Considered Harmful – Crisp’s Blog
- [Wayback/Archive] The Three Rs or the Connextra format – User Experience Mapping [Book]
- [Wayback/Archive] User Story Template for Agile | Agile Alliance
–jeroen
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 
Derek Carter said
I’ve found conventioncommits to be useful if the tooling automates the creation of a release with versioning on merge to the default branch.
And *ONLY* then.
I’m using `semantic-release` and `python semantic-release` to do that in my org with a global gitlab pipeline file to minimize the amount of work a developer needs to do to have the “magic” happen.
jpluimers said
Good point. Thanks!