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Lint commit messages

Demo generated with svg-term-cli

cat docs/assets/commitlint.json | svg-term --out docs/assets/commitlint.svg --frame --profile=Seti --height=20 --width=80

• 🚓 Be a good commitizen
• 📦 Share configuration via npm
• 🤖 Tap into conventional-changelog

Contents

• What is commitlint
  • Benefits using commitlint
• Getting started
• CLI
• Config
• Shared configuration
• API
• Tools
• Version Support and Releases
• Related projects
• License
• Development
  • Install and run
  • Publishing a release

---

What is commitlint

commitlint checks if your commit messages meet the conventional commit format.

In general the pattern mostly looks like this:

type(scope?): subject  #scope is optional; multiple scopes are supported (current delimiter options: "/", "\" and ",")

Real world examples can look like this:

chore: run tests on travis ci

fix(server): send cors headers

feat(blog): add comment section

Common types according to commitlint-config-conventional (based on the Angular convention) can be:

• build
• chore
• ci
• docs
• feat
• fix
• perf
• refactor
• revert
• style
• test

These can be modified by your own configuration.

Benefits using commitlint

• Why Use Conventional Commits?
• "The perks of committing with conventions" (Talk slides)

Getting started

# Install commitlint cli and conventional config
npm install --save-dev @commitlint/{config-conventional,cli}
# For Windows:
npm install --save-dev @commitlint/config-conventional @commitlint/cli

# Configure commitlint to use conventional config
echo "module.exports = {extends: ['@commitlint/config-conventional']}" > commitlint.config.js

To lint commits before they are created you can use Husky's commit-msg hook:

# Install Husky v6
npm install husky --save-dev
# or
yarn add husky --dev

# Activate hooks
npx husky install
# or
yarn husky install

# Add hook
npx husky add .husky/commit-msg 'npx --no -- commitlint --edit "$1"'
# Sometimes above command doesn't work in some command interpreters
# You can try other commands below to write npx --no -- commitlint --edit $1
# in the commit-msg file.
npx husky add .husky/commit-msg \"npx --no -- commitlint --edit '$1'\"
# or
npx husky add .husky/commit-msg "npx --no -- commitlint --edit $1"

# or
yarn husky add .husky/commit-msg 'yarn commitlint --edit $1'

Check the husky documentation on how you can automatically have Git hooks enabled after install for different yarn versions.

Detailed Setup instructions

• Local setup - Lint messages on commit with husky
• CI setup - Lint messages during CI builds

CLI

• Primary way to interact with commitlint.
• npm install --save-dev @commitlint/cli
• Packages: cli

Config

• Configuration is picked up from:
  • .commitlintrc
  • .commitlintrc.json
  • .commitlintrc.yaml
  • .commitlintrc.yml
  • .commitlintrc.js
  • .commitlintrc.cjs
  • .commitlintrc.ts
  • commitlint.config.js
  • commitlint.config.cjs
  • commitlint.config.ts
  • commitlint field in package.json
• Packages: cli, core
• See Rules for a complete list of possible rules
• An example configuration can be found at @commitlint/config-conventional

Shared configuration

A number of shared configurations are available to install and use with commitlint:

• @commitlint/config-angular
• @commitlint/config-conventional
• @commitlint/config-lerna-scopes
• @commitlint/config-patternplate
• conventional-changelog-lint-config-atom
• conventional-changelog-lint-config-canonical
• commitlint-config-jira

⚠️ If you want to publish your own shareable config then make sure it has a name aligning with the pattern commitlint-config-emoji-log or commitlint-config-your-config-name — then in extend all you have to write is emoji-log or your-config-name.

API

• Alternative, programmatic way to interact with commitlint
• Packages:
  • format - Format commitlint reports
  • lint - Lint a string against commitlint rules
  • load - Load shared commitlint configuration
  • read - Read commit messages from a specified range or last edit
• See API for a complete list of methods and examples

Tools

• commitizen adapter
• prompt

Roadmap

Ideas: conventional-changelog/commitlint#94

commitlint is considered stable and is used in various projects as development tool.

We identify ease of adoption and developer experience as fields where there is room and need for improvement. The items on the roadmap should enhance commitlint regarding those aspects.

• Adoption: Provide reusable Travis CI integration: @commitlint/travis-cli (https://github.com/conventional-changelog/commitlint/releases/tag/v5.1.0)
• DX: Support PR squash scenario via ahmed-taj/commitlint-bot and @commitlint/travis-cli
• Adoption: Make ahmed-taj/commitlint-bot configurable via commitlint configuration
• Adoption: Create commitlint init
• DX: Extend the configuration schema to allow for additional fields (descriptions, examples, fixes) on both the rule and value level
• DX: Incorporate an extended version of lennym/commit-template deducing a template from commitlint configuration
• DX: Rewrite @commitlint/prompt for better usability (might involve a lot of yak-shaving)

Version Support and Releases

• Node.js LTS >= 12
• git >= 2.13.2

Releases

Security patches will be applied to versions which are not yet EOL.
Features will only be applied to the current main version.

Release	Inital release	End-of-life
v15	17.11.2021	17.11.2022
v14	26.10.2021	26.10.2022
v13	24.05.2021	24.05.2022
v12	23.02.2021	23.02.2022
v11	13.09.2020	13.09.2020

Dates are subject to change.

We're not a sponsored OSS project. Therefor we can't promise that we will release patch versions for older releases in a timley manner.
If you are stuck on an older version and need a security patch we're happy if you can provide a PR.

Related projects

• conventional-changelog – Generate a changelog from conventional commit history
• commitizen – Simple commit conventions for internet citizens
• create-semantic-module – CLI for quickly integrating commitizen and commitlint in new or existing projects

License

Copyright by @marionebl. All commitlint packages are released under the MIT license.

Development

commitlint is developed in a mono repository.

Install and run

git clone git@github.com:conventional-changelog/commitlint.git
cd commitlint
yarn
yarn run build # run build tasks
yarn start # run tests, again on change

For more information on how to contribute please take a look at our contribution guide.

Package dependency overview

(Partly outdated)

Publishing a release

Before publishing a release do a yarn run publish --dry-run to get the upcoming version and update the version in the should print help test.
Commit that change before creating the new version without --dry-run.

npm login
nvm use (if you have nvm installed)

yarn clean
yarn install
yarn build
yarn test
yarn run publish --otp <one-time password>

Create Github release

1. Copy changelog entry for the new version
2. Create release for the new tag: https://github.com/conventional-changelog/commitlint/releases
3. Post in the commitlint Slack-channel

Publish a next release (or i.e. patch release)

npm login
nvm use (if you have nvm installed)

yarn clean
yarn install
yarn build
yarn test
npx lerna publish --conventional-commits --dist-tag [`next` | `[PATCH_RELEASE_VERSION]`] --otp <one-time password>

If for some reason this stops in between, you can manually publish missing packages like this:

npm publish <package-name> --tag [`next` | `[PATCH_RELEASE_VERSION]`] --otp <one-time password>

Move next to latest

npm login

npx lerna exec --no-bail --no-private --no-sort --stream -- '[ -n "$(npm v . dist-tags.next)" ] && npm dist-tag add ${LERNA_PACKAGE_NAME}@$(npm v . dist-tags.next) latest --otp <one-time password>'

Remove next:

npx lerna exec --no-bail --no-private --no-sort --stream -- '[ -n "$(npm v . dist-tags.next)" ] && npm dist-tag rm ${LERNA_PACKAGE_NAME} next --otp <one-time password>'