Márton SalomváryApr 16, 2025

Why are developers obsessed with putting ticket IDs in the subject line (first line) of a commit message?

Things like:
"[FCK-123] Make some change"

Or like:
"Make another change (#123)"

In what use cases is this superior to keeping them at the very bottom of the commit message? And once they are there, why not have a full link to the issue tracker?

Like:

"Make some change

Explain more...

xttps://github.com/team/project/issues/123
"

#SoftwareDevelopment #SCM

Show threadMárton Salomváry
I am not dogmatic about most things in #SoftwareDevelopment but for commit messages, https://cbea.ms/git-commit/ is my Holy Bible.
How to Write a Git Commit Message

Commit messages matter. Here's how to write them well.

cbeams
Apr 16, 2025 at 7:20pmWeb
Show threadYves Van Goethem Apr 16, 2025
@mrc I have rarely found any commit message useful. I consider them breadcrumbs, when they are associated to a tool like jira or github it's easy to identify where the real information is stored.
As a dev I simply use them as indicators to do more advanced stuff like bisecting, as a project or people manager I find them useful as it tells me a lot about how people organise their work and how it affects metrics and sentiments within a team or organisation.
Show threadMárton SalomváryApr 18, 2025

@yvg I find commit messages extremely useful, once or twice a week on the average when looking at some code and am like "who has done this and why"?

Then I look at the commit message, and usually (hopefully) find an issue tracker link that explains more, or has more links like to documentation or a Slack thread.

Not infrequently these are my own commits from few months ago :)

None of this requires the ticket link/ID to be in the subject line (which is best kept as short).

Show threadYves Van Goethem Apr 18, 2025
@mrc Yea I dont write long commit messages, that's why I also do the thing of "FOO-1234: Adding foobarbaz"
Show threadYves Van Goethem Apr 18, 2025
@mrc Never found it useful to bikeshed over commit messages, have commit linters, etc.