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Git Best Practices

Commit Related Changes

A commit should be a wrapper for related changes. For example, fixing two different bugs should produce two separate commits. Small commits make it easier for other team members to understand the changes and roll them back if something went wrong. With tools like the staging area and the ability to stage only parts of a file, Git makes it easy to create very granular commits.

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Commit Often

Committing often keeps your commits small and, again, helps you commit only related changes. Moreover, it allows you to share your code more frequently with others. That way it’s easier for everyone to integrate changes regularly and avoid having merge conflicts. Having few large commits and sharing them rarely, in contrast, makes it hard both to solve conflicts and to comprehend what happened.

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Don’t Commit Half-Done Work

You should only commit code when it’s completed. This doesn’t mean you have to complete a whole, large feature before committing. Quite the contrary: split the feature’s implementation into logical chunks and remember to commit early and often. But don’t commit just to have something in the repository before leaving the office at the end of the day. If you’re tempted to commit just because you need a clean working copy (to check out a branch, pull in changes, etc.) consider using Git’s “Stash” feature instead.

Test Before You Commit

Resist the temptation to commit something that you “think” is completed. Test it thoroughly to make sure it really is completed and has no side effects (as far as one can tell). While committing half-baked things in your local repository only requires you to forgive yourself, having your code tested is even more important when it comes to pushing / sharing your code with others.

Write Good Commit Messages

Begin your message with a short summary of your changes (up to 50 characters as a guideline). Separate it from the following body by including a blank line. The body of your message should provide detailed answers to the following questions: What was the motivation for the change? How does it differ from the previous implementation? Use the imperative, present tense („change“, not „changed“ or „changes“) to be consistent with generated messages from commands like git merge.

I hope you find this article useful and I would love to read your comments on git practices you are following!!

1 comment

Tyler T
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
March 4, 2021

Nice post!

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