validate-commit-msg

This provides you a binary that you can use as a githook to validate the commit message. I recommend husky. You'll want to make this part of the commit-msg githook, e.g. when using husky, add "commitmsg": "validate-commit-msg" to your npm scripts in package.json.

Validates that your commit message follows this format:

<type>(<scope>): <subject>

Or without optional scope:

<type>: <subject>

Installation

This module is distributed via npm which is bundled with node and should be installed as one of your project's devDependencies:

npm install --save-dev validate-commit-msg

Usage

options

You can specify options in .vcmrc. It must be valid JSON file. The default configuration object is:

{
  "types": ["feat", "fix", "docs", "style", "refactor", "perf", "test", "build", "ci", "chore", "revert"],
  "scope": {
    "required": false,
    "allowed": ["*"],
    "validate": false,
    "multiple": false
  },
  "warnOnFail": false,
  "maxSubjectLength": 100,
  "subjectPattern": ".+",
  "subjectPatternErrorMsg": "subject does not match subject pattern!",
  "helpMessage": "",
  "autoFix": false
}

Alternatively, options can be specified in package.json:

{
  "config": {
    "validate-commit-msg": {
      /* your config here */
    }
  }
}

.vcmrc has precedence, if it does not exist, then package.json will be used.

types

These are the types that are allowed for your commit message. If omitted, the value is what is shown above.

You can also specify: "types": "*" to indicate that you don't wish to validate types.

Or you can specify the name of a module that exports types according to the conventional-commit-types spec, e.g. "types": "conventional-commit-types".

scope

This object defines scope requirements for the commit message. Possible properties are:

required

A boolean to define whether a scope is required for all commit messages.

allowed

An array of scopes that are allowed for your commit message.

You may also define it as "*" which is the default to allow any scope names.

validate

A boolean to define whether or not to validate the scope(s) provided.

multiple

A boolean to define whether or not to allow multiple scopes.

warnOnFail

If this is set to true errors will be logged to the console, however the commit will still pass.

maxSubjectLength

This will control the maximum length of the subject.

subjectPattern

Optional, accepts a RegExp to match the commit message subject against.

subjectPatternErrorMsg

If subjectPattern is provided, this message will be displayed if the commit message subject does not match the pattern.

helpMessage

If provided, the helpMessage string is displayed when a commit message is not valid. This allows projects to provide a better developer experience for new contributors.

The helpMessage also supports interpolating a single %s with the original commit message.

autoFix

If this is set to true, type will be auto fixed to all lowercase, subject first letter will be lowercased, and the commit will pass (assuming there's nothing else wrong with it).

Node

Through node you can use as follows

var validateMessage = require('validate-commit-msg');
 
var valid = validateMessage('chore(index): an example commit message');
 
// valid = true

CI

You can use your CI to validate your last commit message:

validate-commit-msg "$(git log -1 --pretty=%B)"

Note this will only validate the last commit message, not all messages in a pull request.

Monorepo

If your lerna repo looks something like this:

my-lerna-repo/
  package.json
  packages/
    package-1/
      package.json
    package-2/
      package.json

The scope of your commit message should be one (or more) of the packages:

EG:

{
  "config": {
    "validate-commit-msg": {
      "scope": {
        "required": true,
        "allowed": ["package-1", "package-2"],
        "validate": true,
        "multiple": true
      },
    }
  }
}

Other notes

If the commit message begins with WIP then none of the validation will happen.

Credits

This was originally developed by contributors to the angular.js project. I pulled it out so I could re-use this same kind of thing in other projects.

Contributors

Thanks goes to these wonderful people (emoji key):

_{Kent C. Dodds} 💁 💻 📖 👀 ⚠️	_{Remy Sharp} 💻 📖 ⚠️	_{Cédric Malard} 💻 ⚠️	_{Mark Dalgleish} 📖	_{Ryan Kimber} 💻 ⚠️	_{Javier Collado} 💻 ⚠️	_{Jamis Charles} 💻 ⚠️
_{Shawn Erquhart} 💻 📖 ⚠️	_{Tushar Mathur} 💻 ⚠️	_{Jason Dreyzehner} 💻 📖 ⚠️	_{Abimbola Idowu} 💻	_{Gleb Bahmutov} 💻 ⚠️	_Dennis 💻	_{Matt Lewis} 💻
_{Tom Vincent} 💻	_{Anders D. Johnson} 💻 📖 ⚠️	_{James Zetlen} 💻 ⚠️	_{Paul Bienkowski} 💻 ⚠️	_{Barney Scott} 💻 ⚠️	_{Emmanuel Murillo Sánchez} 💻 ⚠️	_{Hans Kristian Flaatten} 💻 ⚠️
_{Bo Lingen} 📖	_{Spyros Ioakeimidis} 💻 📖 ⚠️	_{Matt Travi} 🐛	_{Jonathan Garbee} 💻 📖 ⚠️	_{Tobias Lins} 📖	_{Max Claus Nunes} 💻	_standy 💻 ⚠️