I recently began incorporating prefixes into my Git commits to add more context to them.

The prefixes I used last week are:

• feat: when developing a new feature
• fix: for correcting an error
• chore: when changing configuration or renaming files
• test: for tasks related to testing
• docs: when documenting something, for example in the README.md
• refactor: for restructuring existing code without changing its external behavior
• post: for adding a new blog entry

When I prefix a Git commit, I use lowercase for the prefix, followed by a message that starts with a capitalized letter. Finally, I include a reference to the related issue. For example:

feat: Show a message to the user indicating successful sign-in (#15)

I believe this is a good practice, and I’ve seen it used in other open-source projects on GitHub, so I’ve added it to my workflow. I’ll be adding more prefixes if I find others that are useful.