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When you commit with Commitizen, you'll be prompted to fill out any required commit fields at commit time. No more waiting until later for a git commit hook to run and reject your commit (thoughthat can still be helpful). No more digging throughCONTRIBUTING.md to find what the preferred format is. Get instant feedback on your commit message formatting and be prompted for required fields.

Commitizen is currently tested against Node.js 12, 14, & 16, although it may work inolder versions of Node.js. You should also have npm 6 or greater.

Installation is as simple as running the following command (if you seeEACCES error, readingfixing npm permissions may help):

npm install -g commitizen

Simply usegit cz or justcz instead ofgit commit when committing. You can also usegit-cz, which is an alias forcz.

Alternatively, if you are usingnpm 5.2+ you canusenpx instead of installing globally:

npx cz

or as an npm script:

..."scripts": {"commit":"cz"  }

When you're working in a Commitizen-friendly repository, you'll be prompted to fill in any required fields, and your commit messages will be formatted according to the standards defined by project maintainers.

If you'renot working in a Commitizen-friendly repository, thengit cz will work just the same asgit commit, butnpx cz will use thestreamich/git-cz adapter. To fix this, you need to firstmake your repo Commitizen friendly

For this example, we'll be setting up our repo to useAngularJS's commit message convention, also known asconventional-changelog.

First, install the Commitizen CLI tools:

npm install commitizen -g

Next, initialize your project to use the cz-conventional-changelog adapter by typing:

# npmcommitizen init cz-conventional-changelog --save-dev --save-exact# yarncommitizen init cz-conventional-changelog --yarn --dev --exact# pnpmcommitizen init cz-conventional-changelog --pnpm --save-dev --save-exact

Note that if you want to force install over the top of an old adapter, you can apply the--force argument. For more information on this, just runcommitizen help.

The above command does three things for you:

1. Installs the cz-conventional-changelog adapter npm module
2. Saves it topackage.json'sdependencies ordevDependencies
3. Adds theconfig.commitizen key to the root of yourpackage.json file as shown here:

..."config": {"commitizen": {"path":"cz-conventional-changelog"    }  }

Alternatively, Commitizen configs may be added to a.czrc file:

{"path":"cz-conventional-changelog"}

This just tells Commitizen which adapter we actually want our contributors to use when they try to commit to this repo.

commitizen.path is resolved viarequire.resolve and supports:

• npm modules
• directories relative toprocess.cwd() containing anindex.js file
• file base names relative toprocess.cwd() with.js extension
• full relative file names
• absolute paths

Please note that in the previous version of Commitizen we used czConfig.czConfig has been deprecated, and you should migrate to the new format before Commitizen 3.0.0.

Installing and running Commitizen locally allows you to make sure that developers are running the exact same version of Commitizen on every machine.

Install Commitizen withnpm install --save-dev commitizen.

Onnpm 5.2+ you canusenpx to initialize the conventional changelog adapter:

npx commitizen init cz-conventional-changelog --save-dev --save-exact

Forprevious versions of npm (< 5.2) you can execute./node_modules/.bin/commitizen or./node_modules/.bin/cz in order to actually use the commands.

You can then initialize the conventional changelog adapter using:./node_modules/.bin/commitizen init cz-conventional-changelog --save-dev --save-exact

And you can then add some nice npm scripts in yourpackage.json file pointing to the local version of Commitizen:

..."scripts": {"commit":"cz"  }

This will be more convenient for your users because then if they want to do a commit, all they need to do is runnpm run commit and they will get the prompts needed to start a commit!

NOTE: If you are usingprecommit hooks thanks to something likehusky, you will need to name your script something other than"commit"(e.g."cm": "cz"). The reason is because npm scripts has a "feature" where it automatically runs scripts with the nameprexxx wherexxx is the name of another script. In essence,npm and husky will run"precommit" scripts twice if you name the script"commit", and the workaround is to prevent the npm-triggeredprecommit script.

This example shows how to incorporate Commitizen into the existinggit commit workflow by using git hooks and the--hook command-line option. This is useful for project maintainerswho wish to ensure the proper commit format is enforced on contributions from those unfamiliar with Commitizen.

Once either of these methods is implemented, users runninggit commit will be presented with an interactive Commitizen session that helps them write useful commit messages.

NOTE: This example assumes that the project has been set up touse Commitizen locally.

Update.git/hooks/prepare-commit-msg with the following code:

#!/bin/bashexec< /dev/tty&& node_modules/.bin/cz --hook||true

Forhusky users, add the following configuration to the project'spackage.json file:

"husky": {"hooks": {"prepare-commit-msg":"exec < /dev/tty && npx cz --hook || true"  }}

Whyexec < /dev/tty? By default, git hooks are not interactive. This command allows the user to use their terminal to interact with Commitizen during the hook.

Add the "Commitizen friendly" badge to your README using the following markdown:

[![Commitizen friendly](https://img.shields.io/badge/commitizen-friendly-brightgreen.svg)](http://commitizen.github.io/cz-cli/)

Your badge will look like this:

It may also make sense to change yourREADME.md orCONTRIBUTING.md files to include or link to the Commitizen project so that your new contributors may learn more about installing and using Commitizen.

Installcommitizen globally, if you have not already.

npm install -g commitizen

Install your preferredcommitizen adapter globally (for examplecz-conventional-changelog).

npm install -g cz-conventional-changelog

Create a.czrc file in yourhome directory, withpath referring to the preferred, globally-installed,commitizen adapter

echo'{ "path": "cz-conventional-changelog" }'>~/.czrc

You are all set! Nowcd into anygit repository and usegit cz instead ofgit commit, and you will find thecommitizen prompt.

Pro tip: You can use all thegit commitoptions withgit cz. For example:git cz -a.

If your repository is aNode.js project, making itCommitizen friendly is super easy.

If your repository is alreadyCommitizen friendly, the localcommitizen adapter will be used, instead of globally installed one.

As a project maintainer of many projects, you may want to standardize on a single commit message format for all of them. You can create your own node module which acts as a front-end for Commitizen.

// my-cli.js#!/usr/bin/env node"use strict";constpath=require('path');constbootstrap=require('commitizen/dist/cli/git-cz').bootstrap;bootstrap({cliPath:path.join(__dirname,'../../node_modules/commitizen'),// this is newconfig:{"path":"cz-conventional-changelog"}});

// package.json{"name":"company-commit","bin":"./my-cli.js","dependencies": {"commitizen":"^2.7.6","cz-conventional-changelog":"^1.1.5"  }}

npm install --save-dev company-commit./node_modules/.bin/company-commit

We know that every project and build process has different requirements, so we've tried to keep Commitizen open for extension. You can do this by choosing from any of the pre-built adapters or even by building your own. Here are some of the great adapters available to you:

• cz-conventional-changelog
• cz-conventional-changelog-for-jira
• cz-conventional-changelog-with-jiraid-detection
• cz-jira-smart-commit
• @endemolshinegroup/cz-jira-smart-commit
• @endemolshinegroup/cz-github
• rb-conventional-changelog
• @mapbox/cz-mapbox-changelog
• cz-customizable
• cz-commitlint
• commitlint
• vscode-commitizen
• cz-emoji
• cz-adapter-eslint
• commitiquette
• cz-format-extension
• cz-emoji-conventional
• cz-git
• cz-vinyl

To create an adapter, just fork one of these great adapters and modify it to suit your needs. We pass you an instance ofInquirer.js, but you can capture input using whatever means necessary. Just call thecommit callback with a string and we'll be happy. Publish it to npm, and you'll be all set!

As of version 2.7.1, you may attempt to retry the last commit using thegit cz --retry command. This can be helpful when you have tests set up to run via a git precommit hook. In this scenario, you may have attempted a Commitizen commit, painstakingly filled out all of the commitizen fields, but your tests fail. In previous Commitizen versions, after fixing your tests, you would be forced to fill out all of the fields again. Enter the retry command. Commitizen will retry the last commit that you attempted in this repo without you needing to fill out the fields again.

Please note that the retry cache may be cleared when upgrading Commitizen versions, upgrading adapters, or if you delete thecommitizen.json file in your home or temp directory. Additionally, the commit cache uses the filesystem path of the repo, so if you move a repo or change its path, you will not be able to retry a commit. This is an edge case but might be confusing if you have scenarios where you are moving folders that contain repos.

It is important to note that if you are runningcz from an npm script (let's say it is calledcommit) you will need to do one of the following:

• Pass-- --retry as an argument for your script. i.e:npm run commit -- --retry
• Usenpx to find and call thecz executable directly. i.e:npx cz --retry

Note that the last two optionsdo not require you to pass-- before the args but the firstdoes.

As a project maintainer, making your repo Commitizen friendly allows you to select pre-existing commit message conventions or to create your own custom commit message convention. When a contributor to your repo uses Commitizen, they will be prompted for the correct fields at commit time.

Commitizen is great on its own, but it shines when you use it with some other amazing open source tools. Kent C. Dodds shows you how to accomplish this in his Egghead.io series,How to Write an Open Source JavaScript Library. Many of the concepts can be applied to non-JavaScript projects as well.

Commitizen is an open source project that helps contributors be good open source citizens. It accomplishes this by prompting them to follow commit message conventions at commit time. It also empowers project maintainers to create or use predefined commit message conventions in their repos to better communicate their expectations to potential contributors.

Both! Commitizen is not meant to be a replacement for git commit hooks. Rather, it is meant to work side-by-side with them to ensure a consistent and positive experience for your contributors. Commitizen treats the commit command as a declarative action. The contributor is declaring that they wish to contribute to your project. It is up to you as the maintainer to define what rules they should be following.

We accomplish this by letting you define which adapter you'd like to use in your project. Adapters just allow multiple projects to share the same commit message conventions. A good example of an adapter is the cz-conventional-changelog adapter.

• conventional-changelog – Generate a changelog from conventional commit history
• commitlint - Lint commit messages

@JimTheDev (Jim Cummins, author)@kentcdodds@accraze@kytwb@Den-dp

Special thanks to @stevelacy, whosegulp-git project makes commitizen possible.

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