glossaryGit workflow glossary
Plain-language explanations of conventional commits, atomic commits, pre-commit hooks, and more Git workflow concepts.
Conventional CommitsA lightweight specification for commit message formatting that encodes change type, scope, and description in a structured, machine-readable way.Atomic CommitsA commit that encapsulates exactly one logical change, making it independently understandable, revertable, and reviewable without affecting unrelated parts of the codebase.Commit SplittingThe practice of dividing a set of staged changes into multiple discrete commits, each containing one logical unit of work.Pre-commit HooksGit hooks that run automatically before a commit is recorded, allowing teams to enforce code quality checks, linting, or message format validation without manual steps.Semantic VersioningA versioning scheme using a MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH number format where each component increments according to the nature of the changes: breaking changes, new features, and bug fixes respectively.Git HooksShell scripts placed in a repository's .git/hooks directory that Git executes automatically at specific points in the version control workflow.Conventional ChangelogAn automatically generated changelog derived from Conventional Commits history, categorising changes into sections like Features, Bug Fixes, and Breaking Changes per release.Monorepo CommitsCommit practices adapted for repositories containing multiple packages or services, using scope to indicate which package or service a change belongs to.Commit Message FormatThe structural rules that define how a git commit message should be organised, including its subject line, optional body, and optional footer sections.Squash CommitsThe git operation of combining multiple commits into a single commit, typically used to clean up work-in-progress history before merging a feature branch.