Miscellaneous notes on git commit, using the Linus kernel source as an example.

See which files are staged for committing:

$ git status
On branch master
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/master'.

Changes to be committed:
  (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)

	modified:   MAINTAINERS
	modified:   README

Changes not staged for commit:
  (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
  (use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)

	modified:   Makefile
$

This might be worth setting at the system level.

$ git config --global commit.template ~/.gitmessage.txt

Example ~/.gitmessage.txt:

Subject line (try to keep under 60 characters)

Multi-line description of commit,
feel free to be detailed.

[Ticket: X]