Massimiliano Mirra

Notes















Date:
Tags: collaboration
Status: finished

Bi-dimensional commit messages

The “conventional commit” format advocates prefixing commit messages with keywords to give both humans and machines a quick idea of what’s affected:

41e7be2 feat: notify user on new messages
f3b33ab build: enable caching to decrease build times
7501fb2 fix(api): detect invalid query parameter
f5baa4d docs: typo
06e851a perf(ui): optimize loading time

The keyword mostly answers the question: “How does this modify existing code?” It fixes or refactors it, enhances its performance, or adds a new feature on top. Sometimes, however, it answers the question: “What area does this affect?” It affects the build process or the docs. Yet other times, it answers both questions by adding a parenthesized “scope”: it’s a fix to the api; it’s a performance enhancement to the (ui).

And if you’re fixing a doc? Improving the build’s performance?

Having to stop and think in these loaded, non-orthogonal terms, to come up with only moderately descriptive descriptions, feels like too high of a cost for the benefit.

Fortunately, a few extra keystrokes are all that’s need to lower the burden on the writer and boost the value for the reader.

Meet the “-ilities”

A great question one can ask about a change is: “What quality of the system does this directly improve?” [1] A change to the front end might improve usability; one to the back end, observability; another to the docs, understandability.

The book Building Evolutionary Architectures has a long list of these “-ilities”:

  • accessibility
  • adaptability
  • administrability
  • auditability
  • availability
  • compatibility
  • (…two more pages)

You can use them to better describe, and think about, changes.

Value-focused, bi-dimensional commit messages

What qualities matter to your team and project? Pick a few, e.g.: functionality, usability, devability [2], stability, and security.

What quality does a change influence? That’s the first dimension:

what?
“notify user on new messages” makes the application more useful func
“enable caching to decrease build times” makes the system easier to develop dev
“detect invalid query parameter” makes the system more stable stab

How does the change improve the quality? That’s the second dimension:

how?
“notify user on new messages” adds something that wasn’t there before feat
“enable caching to decrease build times” makes something better enh
“detect invalid query parameter” makes something right fix

And the original example becomes:

- 41e7be2 feat: notify user on new messages
+ 41e7be2 usab,feat: notify user on new messages
- f3b33ab build: enable caching to decrease build times
+ f3b33ab dev,enh: enable caching to decrease build times
- 7501fb2 fix(api): detect invalid query parameter
+ 7501fb2 stab,fix(api): detect invalid query parameter
- f5baa4d docs: typo
+ f5baa4d dev,fix: typo
- 06e851a perf(ui): optimize loading time
+ 06e851a usab,enh(ui): optimize loading time

This strategy is surprisingly quick to pick up, generates informative descriptions, and gently nudges one to focus on the fundamental question:

What value does this change deliver?

References


  1. “Directly” because everything, eventually, aims at improving end-user functionality, business profitability, and similar bottom lines, so those aren’t good descriptors at a local level. ↩︎

  2. Think of devability as of usability for developers: a mixture of code understandability, debuggability, and tool ergonomy. ↩︎

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