Commitviesti

Commitviesti is a term used in software development to refer to the text accompanying a code commit in a version control system, most commonly Git. The commitviesti describes the changes introduced by the commit, the motivation behind them, and any related issues. The concept is widely used in Finnish-speaking development teams, but the term is also encountered in multilingual contexts as commit message or commit-viesti. The primary purpose of a commitviesti is to communicate intent to future readers, aid code review, and facilitate traceability in the project history.

Structure and style guidelines typically emphasize a concise subject line in the present tense, followed by a more detailed body if needed. A common convention is to keep the subject under 50 characters and to reference related issues or pull requests in a footer, e.g., Closes #123. Examples: English: "Fix crash when submitting form" and Finnish: "Korjaa virhe, joka kaatoi sovelluksen lomakkeella." If a body is used, it explains what was changed and why, not how.

In practice, commitviest is generated with git commit, using -m options or a text editor, and many teams enforce templates or conventions such as Conventional Commits to standardize categories and formatting. Good commitviesti practices improve project maintenance, debugging, and release notes. They are a basic, language-agnostic aspect of collaborative software development.