Hey fellow programmers, I wanted to share a little experiment I’ve been
conducting lately that has significantly improved my workflow. I’ve started
using AI to generate my Git commit messages, and it’s been a game-changer! By
feeding all the changes I’ve made into a language model with a large context
window (LLM), the AI not only generates a concise commit title but also provides
bullet points describing each of the changes in precise detail. The level of
detail and informativeness it brings to my commit messages is incredible. I used
to spend a considerable amount of time crafting commit messages that accurately
captured the essence of the changes I made. Now, with the help of AI, I find
myself copy-pasting its generated messages most of the time. It’s not just a
time-saver; it also ensures that my commits are well-documented and easy to
understand for my team members. If you haven’t explored using AI for your Git
commits, I highly recommend giving it a try. It can significantly boost your
productivity and help you maintain clean and informative version control
history. Plus, it’s a fascinating intersection of AI and software development!
Have you experimented with similar AI-powered tools for your programming tasks?
I’d love to hear your experiences and any recommendations you might have. Let’s
discuss the future of AI in programming in the comments!
It writes more informative commits than I could ever make so I’m just reading what it says and mostly copy/pasting completely most of the time, I write all of the changes I’ve made into an LLM with a large context window and it write a very detailed commit not just with a title but with bullet points describing each of the changes precisely
You realize you don’t need to list all your changes in the commit message, right? Anyone can blame or diff said changes.
The commit message is meant to be used for the high level stuff, the intent, representing / connecting progress towards a larger work item, and other important context from outside the codebase. Insert other reasons that aren’t saying literally what was changed if you feel I have missed something.
Also one should use their time better if they are spending so much time writing commit messages they feel the need to automate it. Commit messages are rarely read ever again (once merged, lets say), it is not okay to be spending a lot of time on them. That’s not an excuse to write bad commit messages, but you have to balance the time cost with expected utility.
And an addendum to the above. Describing what you did without reasoning, context, or other information that isnt captured within the changes itself makes your commit messages entirely useless. It makes IDE-inserted in-line blame information useless as well. Thus you are now wasting all the time you spend on commit messages, even if you spend less because it’s automated.
Yeah, good commit messages are about intent and context of a change - not what the change itself is. We can look at the diff for that. Just write a single line or two summarizing what the commit does, and everything else should be adding context on top that doesn’t directly exist in the codebase.
You realize you don’t need to list all your changes in the commit message, right? Anyone can blame or diff said changes.
The commit message is meant to be used for the high level stuff, the intent, representing / connecting progress towards a larger work item, and other important context from outside the codebase. Insert other reasons that aren’t saying literally what was changed if you feel I have missed something.
Also one should use their time better if they are spending so much time writing commit messages they feel the need to automate it. Commit messages are rarely read ever again (once merged, lets say), it is not okay to be spending a lot of time on them. That’s not an excuse to write bad commit messages, but you have to balance the time cost with expected utility.
And an addendum to the above. Describing what you did without reasoning, context, or other information that isnt captured within the changes itself makes your commit messages entirely useless. It makes IDE-inserted in-line blame information useless as well. Thus you are now wasting all the time you spend on commit messages, even if you spend less because it’s automated.
Yeah, good commit messages are about intent and context of a change - not what the change itself is. We can look at the diff for that. Just write a single line or two summarizing what the commit does, and everything else should be adding context on top that doesn’t directly exist in the codebase.