2 Oct 20261 min read
Reading Your Git Logs: What Your Commits Say About How You Work
A look through your commit history and what the small decisions in your Git log reveal about how you build.
Context
Your Git history is more than a list of changes. It shows how you think, what you revisit and whether you can explain your own work.
I used to think of a commit message as something I wrote because Git required one. Looking back at my projects, I see something different the commit history is a record of how I actually work.
A project has a story
Opening a repository and reading the commits from the beginning. You should often see the project changing direction a first idea, a new component, a redesign, a bug fix or a feature that was clearly revisited later.
Small messages still matter
Messages like 'updated stuff' or '.' might be enough for me to remember what I did today, but they tell another developer almost nothing. A message should give the future version of me a useful clue.
git log --oneline --reverse
git log --stat -5
git show <commit>My log is part of my portfolio
A portfolio shows the finished result. Git shows the process behind it. That process can reveal whether I build in small steps, whether I revisit decisions and whether I can explain what changed.
What I am changing
- Say what actually changed.
- Keep commits focused on one meaningful change when possible.
- Read the message once before pressing Enter.
- Treat the history as part of the project not disposable text.
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