git-conventional-commit-messages — Cursor rule: setup
This Cursor rule shapes Git commit messages around Conventional Commits. Use it when an agent needs consistent types, scopes, bodies, and footers.
.cursor/rules/git-conventional-commit-messages.mdcWhat git-conventional-commit-messages does
The rule tells Cursor to format Git commit messages with a type, an optional scope in parentheses, and a short description. A longer body and footer section can follow after blank lines.
feat is for a new feature and fix is for a bug correction. Other types such as build, chore, ci, docs, style, refactor, perf, and test are allowed. A breaking API change uses ! before the colon or a BREAKING CHANGE: footer.
Place the rule at .cursor/rules/git-conventional-commit-messages.mdc. Its frontmatter sets alwaysApply: false, so Cursor does not treat it as an always-on rule.
What it helps with
- generate a commit message in Conventional Commits format
- choose
featorfixfor a change - add a code scope to the commit prefix
- mark an incompatible change in the prefix or footer
Example prompts for the agent
- Write a Conventional Commits message for adding user authentication.
- Format a commit for a parser bug fix with the scope
parser. - Describe this breaking change with a
BREAKING CHANGE:footer.
How to install git-conventional-commit-messages
Manually: put the files in place
.cursor/rules/git-conventional-commit-messages.mdcFrontmatter: description, globs, alwaysApply
Manually: put the files in place
.claude/rules/git-conventional-commit-messages.mdThe paths frontmatter field limits the files: move globs from the source into paths
AGENTS.md
Codex reads AGENTS.md: paste the rule text there
Manually: put the files in place
.github/instructions/git-conventional-commit-messages.instructions.mdThe applyTo field sets which files it applies to: move globs from the source into applyTo
Manually: put the files in place
.devin/rules/git-conventional-commit-messages.mdManually: put the files in place
.clinerules/git-conventional-commit-messages.mdStep by step, with commands for each platform: Cursor rules: .mdc files, four modes and what replaced .cursorrules
Questions about git-conventional-commit-messages
How do I install git-conventional-commit-messages in Cursor?
Create .cursor/rules/git-conventional-commit-messages.mdc and add the rule content to that file.
What does git-conventional-commit-messages do?
It guides Cursor to structure Git messages with a type, optional scope, description, body, and footers. It also defines how to mark new features, fixes, and breaking changes.
How should a breaking change be marked?
Put ! before the colon in the type or scope prefix, or add a BREAKING CHANGE: footer with a description.
Source text
git-conventional-commit-messages.mdc · CC0-1.0
--- description: "Cursor rules for Git development with conventional commit messages integration." globs: **/* alwaysApply: false --- Use the Conventional Commit Messages specification to generate 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: <description> may be provided and follow a convention similar to git trailer format. - Additional types are not mandated by the Conventional Commits specification, and have no implicit effect in Semantic Versioning (unless they include a BREAKING CHANGE). A scope may be provided to a commit’s type, to provide additional contextual information and is contained within parenthesis, e.g., feat(parser): add ability to parse arrays. ### Specification Details The key words “MUST”, “MUST NOT”, “REQUIRED”, “SHALL”, “SHALL NOT”, “SHOULD”, “SHOULD NOT”, “RECOMMENDED”, “MAY”, and “OPTIONAL” in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119. Commits MUST be prefixed with a type, which consists of a noun, feat, fix, etc., followed by the OPTIONAL scope, OPTIONAL !, and REQUIRED terminal colon and space. The type feat MUST be used when a commit adds a new feature to your application or library. The type fix MUST be used when a commit represents a bug fix for your application. A scope MAY be provided after a type. A scope MUST consist of a noun describing a section of the codebase surrounded by parenthesis, e.g., fix(parser): A description MUST immediately follow the colon and space after the type/scope prefix. The description is a short summary of the code changes, e.g., fix: array parsing issue when multiple spaces were contained in string. A longer commit body MAY be provided after the short description, providing additional contextual information about the code changes. The body MUST begin one blank line after the description. A commit body is free-form and MAY consist of any number of newline separated paragraphs. One or more footers MAY be provided one blank line after the body. Each footer MUST consist of a word token, followed by either a :<space> or <space># separator, followed by a string value (this is inspired by the git trailer convention). A footer’s token MUST use - in place of whitespace characters, e.g., Acked-by (this helps differentiate the footer section from a multi-paragraph body). An exception is made for BREAKING CHANGE, which MAY also be used as a token. A footer’s value MAY contain spaces and newlines, and parsing MUST terminate when the next valid footer token/separator pair is observed. Breaking changes MUST be indicated in the type/scope prefix of a commit, or as an entry in the footer. If included as a footer, a breaking change MUST consist of the uppercase text BREAKING CHANGE, followed by a colon, space, and description, e.g., BREAKING CHANGE: environment variables now take precedence over config files. If included in the type/scope prefix, breaking changes MUST be indicated by a ! immediately before the :. If ! is used, BREAKING CHANGE: MAY be omitted from the footer section, and the commit description SHALL be used to describe the breaking change. Types other than feat and fix MAY be used in your commit messages, e.g., docs: update ref docs. The units of information that make up Conventional Commits MUST NOT be treated as case sensitive by implementors, with the exception of BREAKING CHANGE which MUST be uppercase. BREAKING-CHANGE MUST be synonymous with BREAKING CHANGE, when used as a token in a footer.
© PatrickJS · CC0-1.0 · PatrickJS/awesome-cursorrules