[rafaele]

What do people think of this line?

> Use the imperative mood in the subject line

The only rationales I've seen for using imperative ("fix bug") over the indicative ("fixed bug") are that it's what git does by default anyways.

Is it really that big of a deal to use the indicative sometimes and imperative other times?

For what it's worth, I always write commit messages in the imperative, out of habit. When others write commit messages in the indicative tense, part of me notices, but I move on because I can still understand the message if it adheres to the other guidelines.

[owalt]

None of this is really worth obsessing over I think, but one point in favor of imperative is it tends to also be the tersest phrasing, which is convenient if you're also aiming for 50 characters max.

[synicalx]

So long as the meaning is clear, it really doesn't matter IMO. Just write it so that when viewed in isolation the meaning of the message is clear and matches the changes held within the commit.

Anyone who gets up in arms over "fixed" vs "fix" needs to get a life.

[tremon]

The imperative mood/future tense ("this commit will...") makes the commit the subject of the message, the past tense makes the developer the subject of the message. In my (limited, personal) experience, the people who insist on past tense commit messages have more trouble killing their darlings, are more likely to take review comments personal, and are more likely to view (part of) the codebase as theirs rather than the team's.

So for me, it's not about the commit message itself, but the communication style says something about the developer and how I best approach them.

My take on this requirement is that it helps developers let go of their attachment to the code they've written.

[stinos]

I use imperative, but for other projects which don't I switch to indicative if that is the style. Personally like imperative more, not sure why, just preference.

> Is it really that big of a deal to use the indicative sometimes and imperative other times?

'big', don't know, but wouldn't be surprised if there's an objectively provable higher cognitive load for having to read a mix of both (or, god forbid, other styles thrown in there as well) vs one consistent style. Just like there is for code etc. And some people are affected by striving for consistency more than others, so for them lack of consisteny might cause some extra friction.