Conventional Commits

Conventional Commits 1.0.0 (conventionalcommits.org (https://www.conventionalcommits.org/en/v1.0.0/ 96,043 )) gives the subject line a structure a program can parse: <type>[(scope)][!]: <description>, then an optional body and footers. The specification defines only two types, and ties them to Semantic Versioning (Semantic Version Tags): fix means a patch release and feat a minor release, while a ! before the colon or a BREAKING CHANGE: footer means a major release whatever the type. The widely used Angular 42,088 convention adds docs, test, refactor, perf, build, ci, chore and style, which trigger no release.

commitlint 18,754 (github.com/conventional-changelog/commitlint (https://github.com/conventional-changelog/commitlint 18,754 ), MIT, version 21.2.3) checks a message against such rules. Sam replaces BookNest's hand-written commit-msg hook of commit-msg Hook with it:

git switch -q main
npm install --save-dev --silent @commitlint/cli @commitlint/config-conventional
echo "export default { extends: ['@commitlint/config-conventional'] };" > commitlint.config.mjs
echo 'npx --no -- commitlint --edit "$1"' > .husky/commit-msg
echo "Add ?minRating= to /api/books" | npx commitlint
echo "feat(api): Add ?minRating= to /api/books" | npx commitlint
git add -A && git commit -qm "build: check commit messages with commitlint"
git push -q && git log --oneline -1

⧗   --- input ---
Add ?minRating= to /api/books
✖   subject may not be empty [subject-empty]
✖   type may not be empty [type-empty]
...
⧗   --- input ---
feat(api): Add ?minRating= to /api/books
✖   subject must not be sentence-case [subject-case]
...
d396523 build: check commit messages with commitlint

The .mjs extension allows export in a commonjs package, and npx --no never downloads a missing commitlint. The second rejection surprises most people: the conventional rules want a lowercase description, the opposite of BookNest's old rule. Old commits stay as they are, and release tools skip what they cannot parse.

Semantic release is the payoff: a tool reads the messages since the last tag, computes the next version, writes the changelog and tags the release.

semantic-release needs CI and push rights, so it belongs to GitHub. Here BookNest uses commit-and-tag-version, the maintained fork of the deprecated standard-version 7,984 , which touches only the local repository (Release and Hotfix Branches).