OFQ-00014 Commit Messages
Last updated: 13 November 2025
From June 2025, Ofqual now implements standardised commit messages to provide several key benefits:
- Best practices & reputation, adopting a structured approach aligns with industry standards and enhances credibility in the open-source community.
- Improved searchability which gives a consistent history that makes finding specific changes simpler.
- Efficient bebugging to allow for problematic commits to be quickly identified for rollbacks.
- Clarity & readability which makes changes are easier to understand at a glance.
Requirement(s)
Commit message format MUST follow this structure
[TICKET_NUMBER] PREFIX: Description
Components you MUST use in commits
-
Ticket Number – Enclosed in square brackets (e.g.
[49102])
OR
Hotfix - Enclosed in square brackets (e.g.[HOTFIX]) -
Prefix – A standardised keyword indicating the type of change:
-
ADD– For new features, libraries, or functionality. -
REMOVE– For deletions of unnecessary code or dependencies. -
MODIFY– For updates, fixes, or modifications to existing code. -
WIP- For incomplete work that is incomplete or non-functional. -
FWIP- For incomplete work that is incomplete, but is functional (Able to build/run/potentially test).
-
-
Description – A concise summary of what the commit does.
Examples
[10393] REMOVE: Deprecated function cleanup
[53094] ADD: Integrated Replit library
[30258] MODIFY: Updated index function to return full page data
[44958] WIP: Initial implementation of authentication
[78394] FWIP: Refactored API endpoint for efficiency