Configure your commit messages

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When you save changes, you can provide a message describing the changes to refer back to later. To help maintain a consistent format in these messages, you can configure commit templates in your global configuration.

Commit templates are configured with template strings. See this article for more information about this.

To add a commit template, open your global configuration file and add an entry in commit_templates.

Options#

Commit templates have the following options available:

label - String#

Used to identify the commit template, for cases where multiple templates have been made available to the user.

template_path - String#

The path to a file from your site's source files, relative to the root directory. The contents of this file will be used as the template.

template_string - String#

Use this string as the template. This will only be used if template_path is not set.

_inputs - Object#

Specify input fields that will be available to the committer. Read more about configuring inputs here. Values from these inputs can be used to populate placeholders within the template.

extra_data - Object#

Define variables which can be used a data placeholders. Values are template strings, so you can use this to build nested templates. Values are processed sequentially, before template_string or template_path.

Placeholders in commit templates#

Commit templates can contain a combination of plain text and placeholders. Each placeholder is replaced with data. For example, your commit template might look like this:

{type}: {subject}
Committed by [author] at [date]

Data placeholders are always surrounded by { } brackets, and are populated with values from inputs with matching keys (as configured with the _inputs key).

In this example, the editor might choose a "type" from a select box, and enter a summary in a text input labelled "subject".

Commit placeholders insert data related to the commit, and are always surrounded by [ ] brackets. The available commit placeholders are:

changes is a bulleted list of all changes (edits, additions and deletions)
date is the current date
author is the email address of the person making the commit
default_commit_message is the default commit message that CloudCannon would generate. This will resolve to a sentence like "Added/Updated X file(s)".

If your commit template contains no placeholders, its contents will be loaded directly into a textarea, so the user can edit the whole thing before saving.

Filters#

Placeholders support a number of filters. Filters are placed after a |, and multiple filters can be applied in sequence. For example, {title|trim|uppercase} will trim, then uppercase, a placeholder called "title". Read more about all the available placeholders here.

Examples#

The default configuration simply uses the default_commit_message placeholder. This will be used if you don't have any configured commit templates.

/cloudcannon.config.yaml

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commit_templates:
  - template_string: "[default_commit_message]"

In the example below, the user can type into a text field labelled "Message", and leading/trailing whitespace will be trimmed off.

/cloudcannon.config.yaml

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commit_templates:
  - template_string: "{message|trim}"

In this third example, the template string is loaded from a file in the .git directory. Assuming the file contains no placeholders, its contents will be loaded into a text input for the user to edit, before saving.

This example most closely matches the git --template=<file> [flag behaviour](If your commit template contains no placeholders, its contents will be loaded directly into a textarea, so the user can edit the whole thing before saving.).

/cloudcannon.config.yaml

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commit_templates:
  - template_path: /.git/commit-message.txt

The commit_templates option takes an array, supporting multiple commit templates. The committer will be able to select the template they want from a dropdown.

Make sure to use the label field to help differentiate each template.

/cloudcannon.config.yaml

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commit_templates:
  - label: Trimmed message
    template_string: "{message|trim}"
  - label: Commit message from file
    template_path: /.git/commit-message.txt

You can use input configuration to take greater control over the data. In the example below, the committer will be able to select a "commit type" from a dropdown with three predefined options.

This commit template might result in a message like:

fix: removed security vulnerability

/cloudcannon.config.yaml

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commit_templates:
  - template_string: "{commit_type}: {message|trim}"
    _inputs:
      commit_type:
        type: select
        options:
          values:
            - feature
            - fix
            - refactor

You might want to have some specific formatting around an optional part of the commit message.

In the example below, the committer can fill in a text field called "Breaking Change Message". This message will appear after a blank line, and will be prepended with a ⚠️ warning emoji. However, thanks to the if filter, the blank line and emoji won't be added if breaking_change_message is left empty.

This commit template might result in either of the following messages:

Updated dependencies

Removed insecure endpoint

⚠️ /passwords is no longer available

/cloudcannon.config.yaml

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commit_templates:
  - template_string: "{message}{breaking_change|if=breaking_change_message}"
    _inputs:
      breaking_change_message:
        type: text
    extra_data:
      breaking_change: |-

        ⚠️ {breaking_change_message}