Write Clean Commit Messages

Five practical tips to improve your commit messages

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Motivation

Git has been the backbone of modern software development since 2005, empowering teams to collaborate, track changes, and manage code efficiently.

But here’s the truth: A messy commit history makes troubleshooting hard.

Commit messages are your best tool for documenting the reason for change in your code. Writing them well saves time, avoids confusion, and keeps your codebase clean. Here are five tips on how I write commits in my team:

1. Explain the WHY

In a Git commit message, you should specify not only what you have done, but also WHY you have done that. It will make it easier to track changes over time and fix issues.

2. Use the imperative mood

The imperative mood means writing commit messages as if giving a command or instruction. This keeps your commit history clean and consistent:

3. Use present tense

Present tense is the right choice because commits represent changes that are always applicable—they can be checked out, merged, reverted, or cherry-picked at any time.

A properly written Git commit message should complete this sentence:

4. Add link reference to task

If you use project management tools such as Jira, GitLab, or Azure DevOps, consider including the reference ID in your commit message. This links the commit directly to the relevant task, making it easier for your team to understand the broader context of the update.

5. Summarize the WHAT, not the HOW

A commit message should clearly explain WHAT the change does, rather than describing HOW it does it. The how is already visible in the code diff, but the why and what provide essential context.

The same goes for file names—you don’t need to include them in the commit message since Git already records them in its history.

Conclusion

Clear and structured commit messages are a part of internal software quality. Another powerful way to improve software quality is to apply Test-Driven Development (TDD). It helps you write high-quality code, better and faster.

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• The fundamentals of Test-Driven Development

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• The two schools of testing with the 5 test doubles

• Testing legacy code

• Refactoring best practices

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