ricp/better-commits

A CLI for writing better commits, following the conventional commit guidelines

better-commits-demo.mp4

✨ Features

Follows the conventional commit guidelines
Highly flexible configuration with sane defaults
Infers ticket/issue and commit-type from branch
Consistent branch naming CLI via better-branch
Checks git status with interactive git add
Works globally or in your repository
Pretty prints preview in color
Support for git emojis per commit-type
Config validation with specific error messages

📦 Installation

npm install -g better-commits

🚀 Usage

When you're ready to commit. To run the CLI in your terminal:

better-commits
# or
npx better-commits

It will prompt a series of questions. These prompts will build a commit message, which you can preview, before confirming the commit.

To better understand these prompts and their intention, read Conventional Commits Summary

To modify, these prompts, see configuration.

⚙️ Configuration

Global

Your first time running better-commits, a default config will be generated in your $HOME directory, named .better-commits.json

This config will be used if a repository-specific config cannot be found.

Repository

To create a repository-specific config, navigate to the root of your project.

run better-commits-init
This will create a default config named .better-commits.json

All properties are optional, they can be removed from your configuration and will be replaced by the defaults at run-time.

Defaults

Any property can be removed from the config, it will be replaced by the default at run-time

See .better-commits.json in this repository as an example

{
    "check_status": true,
    "commit_type": {
        "enable": true,
        "initial_value": "feat",
        "infer_type_from_branch": true,
        "append_emoji_to_label": false,
        "append_emoji_to_commit": false,
        "options": [
            {
                "value": "feat",
                "label": "feat",
                "hint": "A new feature",
                "emoji": "✨"
            },
            {
                "value": "fix",
                "label": "fix",
                "hint": "A bug fix",
                "emoji": "🐛"
            },
            {
                "value": "docs",
                "label": "docs",
                "hint": "Documentation only changes",
                "emoji": "📚"
            },
            {
                "value": "refactor",
                "label": "refactor",
                "hint": "A code change that neither fixes a bug nor adds a feature",
                "emoji": "🔨"
            },
            {
                "value": "perf",
                "label": "perf",
                "hint": "A code change that improves performance",
                "emoji": "🚀"
            },
            {
                "value": "test",
                "label": "test",
                "hint": "Adding missing tests or correcting existing tests",
                "emoji": "🚨"
            },
            {
                "value": "build",
                "label": "build",
                "hint": "Changes that affect the build system or external dependencies",
                "emoji": "🚧"
            },
            {
                "value": "ci",
                "label": "ci",
                "hint": "Changes to our CI configuration files and scripts",
                "emoji": "🤖"
            },
            {
                "value": "chore",
                "label": "chore",
                "hint": "Other changes that do not modify src or test files",
                "emoji": "🧹"
            },
            {
                "value": "",
                "label": "none"
            }
        ]
    },
    "commit_scope": {
        "enable": true,
        "custom_scope": false,
        "initial_value": "app",
        "options": [
            {
                "value": "app",
                "label": "app"
            },
            {
                "value": "shared",
                "label": "shared"
            },
            {
                "value": "server",
                "label": "server"
            },
            {
                "value": "tools",
                "label": "tools"
            },
            {
                "value": "",
                "label": "none"
            }
        ]
    },
    "check_ticket": {
        "infer_ticket": true,
        "confirm_ticket": true,
        "add_to_title": true,
        "append_hashtag": false,
        "title_position": "start"
    },
    "commit_title": {
        "max_size": 70
    },
    "commit_body": {
        "enable": true,
        "required": false
    },
    "commit_footer": {
        "enable": true,
        "initial_value": [],
        "options": [
            "closes",
            "breaking-change",
            "deprecated",
            "custom"
        ]
    },
    "breaking_change": {
        "add_exclamation_to_title": true
    },
    "confirm_commit": true,
    "print_commit_output": true,
    "branch_pre_commands": [],
    "branch_post_commands": [],
    "branch_user": {
        "enable": true,
        "required": false,
        "separator": "/"
    },
    "branch_type": {
        "enable": true,
        "separator": "/"
    },
    "branch_ticket": {
        "enable": true,
        "required": false,
        "separator": "-"
    },
    "branch_description": {
        "max_length": 70
    }
}

🔎 Inference

better-commits will attempt to infer the ticket/issue and the commit-type from your branch name. It will auto populate the corresponding field if found.

Ticket / Issue-Number

If a STRING-NUMBER or NUMBER are at the start of the branch name or after a /

Commit Type

If a type is at the start of the branch or is followed by a /

🌳 Better Branch

Better branch is a secondary feature that works with better commits

Caches your username
Uses same type-list/prompt from your config
Formats branch name

To run the CLI in your terminal:

better-branch

Pre/Post Branch Checkout Hooks

Optionally configure pre and post checkout commands, for example:

checkout and rebase main before branching
run npm install before branching
run npm run dev after branching

See branch_pre_commands and branch_post_commands in default config.

🌌 Mildly Interesting

Building / Versioning

better-commits works with Semantic Release

See package.json and .github/workflows/publish.yml for example

Github

if you use better-commits to create your first commit on a new branch

when you open a PR for that branch, it will properly auto-populate the title and body.
when you squash/merge, all later commits like "addressing comments" or "fixing mistake". Will be prefixed with an asterisk for easy deletion. This way, you maintain your pretty commit even when squashing.

if you're using Github issues to track your work, and select the closes footer option when writing your commit. Github will automatically link and close that issue when your pr is merged

Fun Facts

better-commits is much smaller than its alternative commitizen

better-commits uses native git commands under the hood. So any hooks, tools, or staging should work as if it was a normal commit.

You can add this badge to your repository to display that you're using a better-commits repository config

[![better commits is enabled](https://img.shields.io/badge/better--commits-enabled?style=for-the-badge&logo=git&color=a6e3a1&logoColor=D9E0EE&labelColor=302D41)](https://github.com/Everduin94/better-commits)

TTY initialization failed: uv_tty_init returned EBADF (bad file descriptor). This may happen because you're running something like git-bash on Windows. Try another terminal/command-prompt or winpty to see if its still an issue.

ricp / better-commits