Is there any way to incrementally build commit messages in git?

Question

I'm wondering if it is possible to build git commit messages incrementally, documenting what I'm doing as I make code changes:

1. Check out and begin work
2. Enter commit message title (i.e. summary)
3. Make a code change
4. Update my commit message to describe change
5. Repeat 3 and 4 until commit is ready

Is there any mechanism built into git to do this?

Answer 1

git commit can take a commit message from a file using the -F option. So, you can do something like this:

# Do some work
$ echo 'Did some work' > commit-msg.txt
# Do some more work
$ echo 'Did some more work' >> commit-msg.txt
$ git commit -F commit-msg.txt

Answer 2

You are supposed to do a commit for every small change you do that requires a message. This is especially easy with a distributed versioning system like git that you are using.

1. Check out and begin work
2. Make a code change
3. Enter commit message and commit
4. Repeat 2 and 3
5. Push updates

And if you for some reason dislike this pattern and want to do the way you described, just use notepad and append to your message after coding a while and then copy paste it when commiting.