Save failed commit messages somewhere? #9

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1. gumbo2k commented on Jul 15, 2024

   

   gumbo2k

   on Jul 15, 2024

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   I like that idea... I just had the same annoying experience. I wrote a lengthy commit message, commitlint said NO, and my long commit message was gone.

   Unfortunately I think it is not commitlint, but git itself, that removes the temporary file with the commit message.

   I guess it might be possible to create a copy of the file by simply adding a .bak to the filename if commitlint is called with a filename (and not reading the commit message from stdin.).
   If commitlint exits with an OK, it removes the .bak otherwise it prints the path to the file, so that you can recover the contents for the next attempt.
2. danbernier commented on Jul 16, 2024

   

   danbernier

   on Jul 16, 2024

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   I wrote a lengthy commit message, commitlint said NO, and my long commit message was gone.

   It's SO frustrating!

   Your .bak file approach sounds workable. Even if (in the case of a "bad" commit message) you have to manually open the file and copy in its contents, and manually delete the file, it's far preferable to the toilet-flush that you experience this way.
3. gumbo2k commented on Jul 16, 2024

   

   gumbo2k

   on Jul 16, 2024

   Last edited by gumbo2k

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   Another idea might be a little more intrusive, but more helpful ... 🤔
   If we decide to fiddle about with git-config, we might save the "bad" message in a file and put its location in config.template ... Thus making git commit automatically open that file on the next commit and put it in the editor 😁
4. muthukrishnan24

   self-assigned this

   on Jun 14, 2025
5. gumbo2k commented on Feb 22, 2026

   

   gumbo2k

   on Feb 22, 2026

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   Another idea might be a little more intrusive, but more helpful ... 🤔 If we decide to fiddle about with git-config, we might save the "bad" message in a file and put its location in config.template ... Thus making git commit automatically open that file on the next commit and put it in the editor 😁

   I am still thinking about this solution.
   Changing the git config (even if it is only the config if the repository rhat you are currently working on) has the potential to mess up your work flow.
   There might be an alternative using prepare-commit-msg hook instead.