before committing
- do not check in commented out code or unneeded files
- the first line of the commit message should be a short
- description and should skip the full stop
+ description (50 characters is the soft limit, see DISCUSSION
+ in git-commit(1)), and should skip the full stop
- the body should provide a meaningful commit message, which:
- uses the imperative, present tense: "change",
not "changed" or "changes".
- includes motivation for the change, and contrasts
its implementation with previous behaviour
- - if you want your work included in git.git, add a
- "Signed-off-by: Your Name <you@example.com>" line to the
- commit message (or just use the option "-s" when
- committing) to confirm that you agree to the Developer's
- Certificate of Origin
+ - add a "Signed-off-by: Your Name <you@example.com>" line to the
+ commit message (or just use the option "-s" when committing)
+ to confirm that you agree to the Developer's Certificate of Origin
- make sure that you have tests for the bug you are fixing
- make sure that the test suite passes after your commit
Also notice that a real name is used in the Signed-off-by: line. Please
don't hide your real name.
-Some people also put extra tags at the end.
+If you like, you can put extra tags at the end:
-"Acked-by:" says that the patch was reviewed by the person who
-is more familiar with the issues and the area the patch attempts
-to modify. "Tested-by:" says the patch was tested by the person
-and found to have the desired effect.
+1. "Reported-by:" is used to to credit someone who found the bug that
+ the patch attempts to fix.
+2. "Acked-by:" says that the person who is more familiar with the area
+ the patch attempts to modify liked the patch.
+3. "Reviewed-by:", unlike the other tags, can only be offered by the
+ reviewer and means that she is completely satisfied that the patch
+ is ready for application. It is usually offered only after a
+ detailed review.
+4. "Tested-by:" is used to indicate that the person applied the patch
+ and found it to have the desired effect.
+
+You can also create your own tag or use one that's in common usage
+such as "Thanks-to:", "Based-on-patch-by:", or "Mentored-by:".
------------------------------------------------
An ideal patch flow
GMail does not appear to have any way to turn off line wrapping in the web
interface, so this will mangle any emails that you send. You can however
-use "git send e-mail" and send your patches through the GMail SMTP server, or
+use "git send-email" and send your patches through the GMail SMTP server, or
use any IMAP email client to connect to the google IMAP server and forward
the emails through that.