A lot … has … been … written about good commit messages and how it’s a very important part of team communication, specially in an open-source setting, and the benefits that such an approach would bring. But, as most things in programming life, unless there’s a clear blueprint and tools that aid with enforcing good patterns, these tend to be ignored, leaving us unable to reap their benefits. In this post, we’ll discuss not only what makes a good commit message, but we will focus on the benefits of following conventions, how to enforce them, and tools that will aid us along the way.