How often should you commit in Git and GitHub?

New developers might wonder, "how often should I be making commits?" Determining the right frequency for committing changes in Git and GitHub impacts your project’s manageability and your team’s workflow. The answer often depends on your project’s size, the nature of the changes, and how your team prefers to track progress.

This guide will explore different strategies to answer when and how often to make commits, as well as discuss how tools like the Graphite CLI can simplify your commit processes.

Best practices for committing in Git

Committing changes frequently in Git is important for several reasons:

• Safety: Frequent commits ensure that your changes are safely stored away from your local development environment. If something goes wrong, you can always revert to a previous state.
• Collaboration: Regular commits keep your team updated with the latest changes. This transparency helps in minimizing merge conflicts and aligning the team on current project statuses.
• Progress tracking: Commits act as checkpoints that help you document the development process, making it easier to track progress and understand changes.

When to commit

When working with Git, it's important to choose when to commit. A solid strategy is to make a series of smaller commits, but you don't want to overload the log and make a commit each time you change a line of code. As a rule of thumb, you can use these tells for when to commit:

• When a change accomplishes a single logical task: This could be a bug fix, a new feature, or an incremental update to an existing feature.
• Before starting a new task: Ensure that all changes related to the current task are committed.
• After fixing a bug or completing a unit of work

Using the Graphite CLI command (gt create), creates a new commit on a new branch in one streamlined command:

# Commit changes with Graphite CLI:
gt create --all --message "feat(module): Add new login feature"

How often to commit in GitHub

In GitHub, how frequently you should commit depends on the workflow your team follows. For example:

• Feature branches: If you’re working on a big feature, it’s wise to commit small changes that add up to the completion of the feature.
• Main development branches: When working directly on the main branch, commit only after thorough testing to ensure stability.

Example of a typical commit process in GitHub using Graphite CLI

# Checkout the main branch
gt checkout main

# Make and commit changes
echo "new function for data processing" >> data_functions.py
gt create --all --message "feat(data): Add new data processing function"

# Push changes to remote and create a pull request
gt submit

Leveraging Graphite CLI for efficient committing

The Graphite CLI tool offers some advantages for Git users, including:

• Simplified Git commands: The gt tool simplifies complex Git commands, making the commit process more accessible and less error-prone.
• Enhanced pull request management: Graphite's stacking feature allows you to manage multiple pull requests efficiently. This is particularly useful in managing large projects where changes are incremental but need to be isolated for review.

Example workflow with the Graphite CLI

1. Create a stack of changes:

   Terminal

   gt checkout main
   gt create --all --message "feat: Add initial data structure"
   gt create --all --message "feat: Implement core processing logic"
   gt create --all --message "feat: Add validation functions"
   
   

2. Submit and manage your stack:

   Terminal

   gt submit
   # After receiving feedback
   gt modify --all --commit "Update per review comments"
   
   

3. Keep your branches updated:

   Terminal

   gt sync
   
   

Summary

Deciding when and how often to make commits should align with your project needs and team workflow. Using tools like the Graphite CLI not only simplifies the process but also enhances your team's efficiency. By committing often and wisely, you can maintain a robust, traceable, and collaborative codebase, ensuring that your project stays on track and is manageable across its lifecycle.