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1. Meaningful Commit Messages

Write clear, concise, and informative commit messages. A good commit message typically includes a subject line and an optional body. The subject line should be imperative and summarize the change, while the body can provide more context.

feat: Add user authentication module

Implement JWT-based authentication for securing API endpoints.
Includes user registration, login, and token refresh functionality.
Resolves #123.

• Start the subject with a verb (e.g., Add, Fix, Refactor).
• Capitalize the subject line.
• Keep the subject line under 50 characters.
• Separate subject from body with a blank line.
• Wrap body text at 72 characters.

2. Branching Strategy

Adopt a consistent branching strategy. A common and effective approach is Gitflow or a simplified version of it.

• main/master: Represents production-ready code.
• develop: Integrates features for the next release.
• feature branches: Created from develop for new features (e.g., feature/user-profile).
• release branches: Created from develop for preparing a release (e.g., release/v1.2).
• hotfix branches: Created from main/master for urgent bug fixes (e.g., hotfix/security-patch).

Regularly pull changes from develop into your feature branches to minimize merge conflicts.

3. Frequent Commits and Pull Requests

Commit small, logical changes frequently. This makes it easier to review code, revert problematic changes, and understand the project history.

Open Pull Requests (or Merge Requests) early and often. This facilitates early feedback and collaboration from your team.

4. Code Reviews

Implement a mandatory code review process for all changes before they are merged into develop or main. Code reviews help catch bugs, improve code quality, share knowledge, and enforce coding standards.

• Be constructive and respectful in your reviews.
• Focus on code logic, potential bugs, style, and adherence to best practices.
• Provide clear suggestions for improvement.

5. Rebasing vs. Merging

Understand when to use rebase and merge.

• Merge: Preserves the history exactly as it happened, creating a merge commit. Good for integrating release or hotfix branches into main.
• Rebase: Rewrites history by replaying commits from one branch onto another. Can create a cleaner, linear history, especially for feature branches before merging into develop.

Rule of thumb: Never rebase commits that have already been pushed to a shared remote repository, as this can cause issues for collaborators.

6. Gitignore File

Use a .gitignore file to exclude unwanted files and directories (e.g., build artifacts, temporary files, IDE configurations) from your Git repository. This keeps your repository clean and focused on source code.

# IDE specific files
.vscode/
.idea/

# Build artifacts
dist/
build/

# Node modules
node_modules/

# Log files
*.log

7. Use Aliases

Configure Git aliases for frequently used commands to save time and reduce typing.

Example in ~/.gitconfig:

[alias]
    co = checkout
    br = branch
    ci = commit
    st = status
    lg = log --graph --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(bold blue)<%an>%Creset' --abbrev-commit