The Conventional Commits specification is a lightweight convention on top of commit messages. It provides an easy set of rules for creating an explicit commit history; which makes it easier to write automated tools on top of. This convention dovetails with SemVer, by describing the features, fixes, and breaking changes made in commit messages.
The commit message should be structured as follows:
<type>[optional scope]: <description>
[optional body]
[optional footer(s)]
The commit contains the following structural elements, to communicate intent to the consumers of your library:
- fix: a commit of the type fix patches a bug in your codebase (this correlates with PATCH in Semantic Versioning).
- feat: a commit of the type feat introduces a new feature to the codebase (this correlates with MINOR in Semantic Versioning).
- BREAKING CHANGE: a commit that has a footer BREAKING CHANGE:, or appends a ! after the type/scope, introduces a breaking API change (correlating with MAJOR in Semantic Versioning). A BREAKING CHANGE can be part of commits of any type.
- types other than fix: and feat: are allowed, for example @commitlint/config-conventional (based on the Angular convention) recommends build:, chore:, ci:, docs:, style:, refactor:, perf:, test:, and others.
- footers other than BREAKING CHANGE: may be provided and follow a convention similar to git trailer format.
Read more here