@@ -303,13 +303,19 @@ Sharing your work before it's complete also allows for discussion and feedback a
## How to write a good commit message
![Good and bad commit message](img/gitlab_flow_good_commit.png)
A commit message should reflect your intention, not just the contents of the commit.
You can see the changes in a commit, so the commit message should explain why you made those changes.
You can see the changes in a commit, so the commit message should explain why you made those changes:
```shell
# This commit message doesn't give enough information
git commit -m'Improve XML generation'
# These commit messages clearly state the intent of the commit
git commit -m'Properly escape special characters in XML generation'
```
An example of a good commit message is: "Combine templates to reduce duplicate code in the user views."
The words "change," "improve," "fix," and "refactor" don't add much information to a commit message.
For example, "Improve XML generation" could be better written as "Properly escape special characters in XML generation."
For more information about formatting commit messages, please see this excellent [blog post by Tim Pope](https://tbaggery.com/2008/04/19/a-note-about-git-commit-messages.html).
To add more context to a commit message, consider adding information regarding the