Focused commits & --amend

Write commits people can read

Lesson 8 of 20 · 9 min · Module 2: Everyday changes

History is written for people: your teammates, and you in six months. Small, focused commits with clear messages make it easy to read and safe to undo.

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Free. No installation: you write and run the code in your browser, and it is checked automatically.

By the end, you’ll be able to…

Keep each commit focused on one change
Write a clear summary and an explanation
Fix the last commit with --amend

The idea

A good commit does one thing. Its message starts with a short summary in the imperative, as if completing the sentence "This commit will…": Add a contact page, not changes. A second -m adds a paragraph that explains why. Made a typo or forgot a file in the last commit? Stage the fix and run git commit --amend: it replaces the last commit. Only do this before you share the commit.

git add menu.txt
git commit --amend -m "Add a contact page"
git commit -m "Summary" -m "Why the change was needed."

01One change, one commit

A commit should do one thing, so its message can describe it in a few words and it can be undone on its own. Mixing a new page and a colour fix in one commit makes both harder to review and to undo.

02Fix the last commit with --amend

git commit --amend replaces the last commit with a new one that includes whatever you staged since, with the message you give. The old commit is replaced, so the new one gets a new hash.

git add menu.txt
git commit --amend -m "Add a contact page"

Output

[main c04e35f] Add a contact page
 Date: Fri Oct 16 10:01:00 2026 +0000
 2 files changed, 4 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 contact.md

03Write messages people can scan

Keep the summary short and in the imperative: Add, Fix, Remove, Update. A second -m becomes the body: explain why the change was needed, not what every line does.

git add style.css
git commit -m "Darken the footer text" -m "The light grey footer was hard to read on a white page."
git log -1

Output

[main a6f0f1d] Darken the footer text
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
commit a6f0f1dc40d3d30da673de449ce2439eac2d57ec (HEAD -> main)
Author: Learner <[email protected]>
Date:   Mon Oct 19 09:02:00 2026 +0000

    Darken the footer text
    
    The light grey footer was hard to read on a white page.

Your turn

Your last commit, Add a contcat page, has a typo in its message and is missing the menu entry you added to menu.txt. It is not pushed yet. Stage menu.txt and use git commit --amend to add it and fix the message to Add a contact page. Then commit the unrelated change in style.css on its own, with the summary Darken the footer text and a second paragraph that explains why.

What the checks look for

The contact commit has the right message and the menu
The typo is gone from the history
The footer change is its own commit, with an explanation
Everything is committed

Try it in the editor →

Take this with you

Small, focused commits with clear messages make history useful; --amend polishes the last one before you share it.

Go a little further

Use git commit --amend --no-edit to add a forgotten file to the last commit without changing its message.