Atomic Commits
When possible, a commit should encompass a single feature, change, or fix. In other words, try to
keep each commit focused on a single thing. This makes it much easier to undo or rollback changes
later on. It also makes your code or project easier to review.
Writing Good Commit Messages (Not have to
follow)
Using present tense not past tense
Describe your changes in imperative mood, e.g. “make xyzzy do frotz” instead of “[This patch]
makes xyzzy do frotz” or “I changed xyzzy to do frotz”, as if you are giving orders to the codebase to
change its behavior.
Amending Commits
Suppose you just made a commit and then realized you forgot to include a file! Or, maybe you made
a typo in the commit message that you want to correct.
Rather than making a brand new separate commit, you can “redo” the previous commit using the --
amend option (can’t do with more than 2 previous commits)
Git Ignore
We can tell Git which files and directories to ignore in a given repository, using a .gitignore file.
This is useful for files you know you NEVER want to commit, including:
Runtime Files: These are files generated during program execution, such as log files, lock
files, cache files, or temporary files. You can ignore them using patterns like:
*.log
*.lock
/cache/
/tmp/
Sensitive Information: Files containing sensitive information, such as passwords, API keys,
or configuration files, should be excluded. For example:
secret.txt
api_key.json
.env
Compiled Code: Ignore compiled code files, such as .class (Java) or .o (C/C++). For
instance:
*.class
*.o
Build Directories: Ignore build output directories, such as /public , /out , or /dist
/public/
/out/
/dist/
Dependency Directories: Exclude directories containing dependencies, like /vendor or
/node_modules
/vendor/
/node_modules/
Create a file called .gitignore in the root of a repository. Inside the file, we can write patterns to
tell Git which files & folders to ignore
