cz-git and czg development journey

中文 Chinese Version

What is Commitizen CLI : Based on Node.js command line tool，Interactively generate standard formatted git commit message
What is Commitizen Adapter : Plugin that replaces Commitizen CLI interaction behavior

cz-git : Lightweight, interactive friendly, highly customizable, standard Angular commit formatted Commitizen Adapter
czg : Understand it as built-in cz-git adapter Commitizen CLI alternative

In this article, I will introduce why cz-git and czg were developed. My development journey 🤗

#Story Beginning

It have to start from submitting contributions to Vuepress-Theme-Gungnir at the beginning of this year. In fact, I have been using Commitizen CLI since my internship. A simple combination of Commitizen CLI + cz-conventional-changelog, and I generally skipped input scope.
And Vuepress-Theme-Gungnir is a monorepo that integrates blog themes, blog plugins, demos and documentation. So for the commit message, you need to add the scope ^{usually the plugin name or theme}. e.g: fix(plugin-rss): do something with plugin...

But for a lazy person like me who also is full-time development of CLI.
I will never do stupid things like repetitive input.

So I submitted PR using cz-customizable, trying to resolve the problem of repetitive input commit through declarative configuration scopes. But I known soon that cz-customizable didn’t really resolve the need after using.

1. If you add the configuration of commitlint, you need to configure two places, and their configurations can use the same one to affect each other

2. Only the interactive mode of up and down selection is too slow to use, if the declared scopes more than 20, then every time you commit, you need to find scope by typing ↑ and ↓
   But in fact, when you commit You already have the answer in your mind, so the interactive way must have a fuzzy search feature
   For example, adding a test to the table component is the greatest interactive wayte Enter Output test. ta Enter output table

At that time, I decided to develop cz-git that can become the most friendly interactive and the greatest adapter. LOL

#Exploring Node.js CLI Can Do What

Actually another very important reason is to explore Node.js can do what great effect.
BTW I am painful to develop CLI with SHELL and AWK in daily work, And the development of cz-git can transferred my attention ^{😈😈 Playing Node}

#Dynamic Configuration And Interaction

The advantage of using Node.js to do CLI is that you can write JavaScript configuration as a dynamic configuration to drive terminal UI behavior. Giving it intelligence and making it more suitable for your usage habits

For example: when writing monorepo configuration, you can use path and fs modules to dynamically define the scopes. And you can use the git command to determine the position of the selection item

// .commitlintrc.cjs
const fs = require('node:fs')
const path = require('node:path')

const packages = fs.readdirSync(path.resolve(__dirname, 'packages'))

const scopeComplete = execSync('git status --porcelain || true')
  .toString()
  .trim()
  .split('\n')
  .find(r => ~r.indexOf('M  packages'))
  ?.replace(/\//g, '%%')
  ?.match(/packages%%((\w|-)*)/)?.[1]

module.exports = {
  prompt: {
    scopes: [...packages],
    defaultScope: scopeComplete,
    customScopesAlign: !scopeComplete ? 'top' : 'bottom',
  }
}

#Command-line completion

Completion is great in command line interaction. Common operating way is using Tab or → to complete the information.
Based on dynamic configuration way. We can have many feature, such as completing the pre-message template or completing the number of the ISSUE

The most classic example in Element-Plus component library, which has very strict requirements for component commit, except for the need to type components as the scope, it is also need to add the component name on prefix subject
e.g:

feat(components): [button] I did something with button

The processing methods are similar, and there are detailed records on website recipes
The final effect and interactive experience are comfortable and nice 🤗

#The Development Journey of czg

In an accidental docker environment test, The idea of Commitizen CLI alternatives development was born.

#Too Many Dependency

If you add commitizen as a dependency in your project, you will find that downloading dependencies takes a long time

$ npm install -D commitizen
added 148 packages, and audited 149 packages in 2 m
$ du -sh ./node_modules
102M ./node_modules

$ npm install -D czg
added 1 packages, and audited 2 packages in 408 ms
$ du -sh ./node_modules
1.3M ./node_modules

You will find that commitizen dependencies are complicated.
The total dependencies 147, the total size 102 MB, I can’t accept it!
So I don’t recommend using commitizen as a project dependency.

And actually czg can be made smaller, but in order to take as an adapter, I need to use inquirer TUI library, otherwise use other TUI libraries or develop by myself It can around 300-500KB 🧐

#Startup Speed

Commitizen CLI needs to be matched with an adapter. You can understand that choose your favorite UI plugin, and it is only used as a launcher.
However, for command that are frequently used like commit, every time Node is started. It need to search for the adapter in node_modules layer by layer, This involves the loss caused by frequent traversal of the file system, so you will find that the startup speed sometime fast or sometime slow.

#Usage

1. Reduce redundant concepts, simpler. Using Commitizen CLI has an additional concept of adapter, cannot be used out of the box, basically you need to know adapter after installation and then configure the adapter.
   More configuration steps and redundant concepts, it make usage becomes complex.

2. npx usage. It is better to support npx czg directly usage as a Node CLI. Although npx is slowly startup speed in terminal using, it is still useful if you have good dependencies number and size control.

3. More command line usage. Commitizen CLI does NOT provide the adapter can have command line usage. like SubCommand and Option feature can affect the interaction or result. The adapter just only using environment variables. A few examples:

   • If you want to use multi select mode, Just typing git czg checkbox
   • When you want to commit message with Emoji. Just also typing git czg emoji
   • Or using the defined and frequently used message alias
     such as modifying the configuration, fix typos in the document
     At this time, you can directly use git czg :fd ^{git czg :<alias>}, without enabling interactive mode

Based on the above points, I finished czg, and now git czg is finally comfortable to usage 🤗

#Wrapping Up

It is my journey of developing cz-git and czg, a process of constantly exploring the friendly interaction of Node.js CLI, and making the tools better. Welcome give a star ⭐

Finally, thanks guys who supported and provided suggestion and help all the time ! Thx 😊