Quick Commitlint

Quick Commitlint documentation

Commit message format

Understand the commit header, body, footer, and breaking-change syntax parsed by Quick Commitlint.

Quick Commitlint parses one UTF-8 commit message. The first line is the header; later paragraphs may form a body and a footer.

type(scope)!: subject

body

Footer-Token: value

Only the header is required. LF and CRLF line endings are accepted.

Header

The header must contain the exact separator : —a colon followed by one space.

feat(parser): add native validation
│    │        │
│    │        └─ subject
│    └────────── optional scope
└─────────────── type

The type must contain one or more ASCII letters, digits, or underscores. Presets normally restrict it further with type-enum. A scope is optional and is the text inside the final parentheses before the separator.

Header Parsed result
feat: add parser type feat, no scope, subject add parser
fix(cli): handle stdin type fix, scope cli, subject handle stdin
feat(api)!: remove legacy command breaking marker present
feat:add parser malformed: the required : separator is missing
feature-name: add parser malformed: - is not valid in the parsed type

A malformed prefix is not partially accepted. Its type, scope, subject, and breaking marker are treated as empty, so enabled type-empty, subject-empty, and related rules report the problem.

Breaking changes

An exclamation mark immediately before the colon marks a breaking change:

feat!: remove the legacy API
feat(api)!: remove the legacy API

The Conventional preset permits this marker. The Angular preset rejects it through subject-exclamation-mark. A breaking change can also be described in the final footer paragraph:

feat(api): remove the legacy API

BREAKING CHANGE: clients must use the v2 endpoint

Body

Everything after the header and before a recognized final footer paragraph is the body. The built-in presets warn when a body starts immediately after the header instead of after a blank line.

feat(parser): expose diagnostics

Return all findings so editors can display them together.

The Conventional preset checks every body line against a 100-code-point limit. The Angular preset does not set a body line limit.

Footer recognition

Only the final paragraph can be a footer. Its first line must begin with one of these trailer forms:

  • BREAKING CHANGE:
  • BREAKING-CHANGE:
  • an ASCII alphanumeric or hyphenated token followed by :
  • an ASCII alphanumeric or hyphenated token followed by #
fix(cli): preserve exit status

Keep the native process status when invoked from a hook.

Refs: #42
Reviewed-by: A. Developer

Because Refs: #42 starts the final paragraph, both lines are treated as the footer. A paragraph whose first line is ordinary prose remains part of the body, even if a later line resembles a trailer.

Parsing boundaries

  • Input must be valid UTF-8.
  • Header and line length rules count Unicode code points, not UTF-8 bytes.
  • Case rules use documented ASCII-oriented checks.
  • Merge, revert, fixup, tag, and initial commit messages are not automatically ignored.
  • There is no configurable parser, custom scope delimiter, or multiple-scope syntax.

See the Rules reference for validation semantics and Commitlint compatibility for deliberate differences from the JavaScript tool.