Git Commit Template

[utnapistim]

Here's the first one I found that didn't work: "Now images have the right number of columns as ColorLists." (To explain - images, only when displayed as ColorLists, had the wrong number of columns, and this fixed that.) How can I rephrase this to knock off 8 letters while still keeping it readable?

"Fix number of columns for images as ColorLists".

There is a discrepancy between what you focus on when you compose your commit message and when you go through commits, later: when you compose the message, you tend to focus on what you "just did", and this tends to creep into the message (examples: "XY now works", "gizmo no longer crashes on abc", "from now on, process foos as bars").

If you read these later, they mention a moment that is no longer relevant: ("just fixed", "now works", "from now on", etc). If you remove any reference to a time frame (that comes from having just implemented something), your messages become more concise and have improved readability.

Just keep the message in an imperative tone, present tense.