validate-commit-msg

This provides you a binary that you can use as a githook to validate the commit message. I recommend ghooks. You'll want to make this part of the commit-msg githook.

Validates that your commit message follows this format:

<type>(<scope>): <subject>

Usage

options

You can specify options in package.json

{
  "config": {
    "validate-commit-msg": {
      "types": ["feat", "fix", "docs", "style", "refactor", "perf", "test", "chore", "revert"], // default
      "warnOnFail": false, // default
      "maxSubjectLength": 100, // default
      "subjectPattern": ".+", // default
      "subjectPatternErrorMsg": 'subject does not match subject pattern!', // default
      "helpMessage": "" //default
    }
  }
}

types

These are the types that are allowed for your commit message. If omitted, the value is what is shown above.

You can also specify: "types": "*" to indicate that you don't wish to validate types

warnOnFail

If this is set to true errors will be logged to the console, however the commit will still pass.

maxSubjectLength

This will control the maximum length of the subject.

subjectPattern

Optional, accepts a RegExp to match the commit message subject against.

subjectPatternErrorMsg

If subjectPattern is provided, this message will be displayed if the commit message subject does not match the pattern.

helpMessage

If provided, the helpMessage string is displayed when a commit message is not valid. This allows projects to provide a better developer experience for new contributors.

The helpMessage also supports interpoling a single %s with the original commit message.

Other notes

If the commit message begins with WIP then none of the validation will happen.

Credits

This was originally developed by contributors to the angular.js project. I pulled it out so I could re-use this same kind of thing in other projects.