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Imperative Mood

You see the imperative mood everywhere in tech:

• UI prompts: “Enter username”

• Speaking to ChatGPT: “Summarise this”

• And yes - Git commit messages.

Did you know Git commit messages should be written in imperative present tense?

Your message should describe what applying the commit will do, not what you did.

Examples

• Update npm dependency to latest version

• Fix bug preventing users from subscribing

• Refactor input function

💡 Remember articles (a/an/the) can be omitted when writing imperative sentences

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