The Need for Code Commit Standardisation
In the fast-paced world of software development, consistency and clarity in code commits and pull requests (PRs) are essential. Without standardised practices, development teams can face challenges that lead to inconsistencies and, in the worst case, suboptimal code reaching production. In this blog post, we'll explore the significance of code commit standardisation and how it can bring order to the chaos, enhance traceability, and improve the overall quality of your code.
The lack of a standardised approach to code commits and pull requests often results in inconsistencies and potential issues in software development. This inconsistency can impact various aspects of your development process.
Key Elements of Code Commit and PR Standardisation
To address these challenges, a standard template and guidelines for code commits and PRs can be established. This template should cover the following key elements:
- Title Formatting: Clear and consistent titles that convey the purpose of the commit or PR.
- Jira References: Incorporating Jira references to link code changes to specific tasks or user stories.
- Commit Bodies: Providing detailed commit bodies to explain the 'what' and 'why' behind each code change.
- PR Approval Processes: Streamlining the PR approval process with standardised checklists.
Benefits of Code Commit Standardisation
The adoption of a code commit standardisation approach offers numerous benefits to your development process:
- Setting Expectations: By defining clear guidelines, you provide developers with a structured framework for their work. This framework helps them understand the required quality, documentation, and consistency standards for their code.
- Standardisation: It aims to establish standardised coding practices across all development squads, enhancing code quality and facilitating smoother code reviews.
- Improved Traceability: standardised Jira references make it easier to trace code changes back to business requirements and user stories, resulting in a more accountable development process.
- Efficient Collaboration: The use of clear and informative commit bodies ensures that team members can understand the context of code changes, promoting efficient collaboration.
Overcoming Challenges
Implementing code commit standardisation may come with its own set of challenges, including:
- Adoption Rate: Ensuring that all development squads embrace the new standardisation measures.
- Training: Team members may require training or documentation to fully understand and implement the new guidelines.
- Enforcement: Mechanisms to enforce these standards, possibly through CI/CD pipeline checks.
- Flexibility: The guidelines must be flexible enough to accommodate team-specific requirements or exceptions.
Addressing these challenges with a well-thought-out strategy is crucial to the success of the standardisation process.
Relationship with DORA and SDLC
The adoption of code commit standardisation aligns with best practices in DevOps Research and Assessment (DORA) and Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). It is a step toward achieving excellence in software development processes and ensuring that your organisation follows industry standards.
Reducing Change Failure Rate
Standardising code commits can play a crucial role in reducing the change failure rate. By enhancing code quality, traceability, and clarity, you are more likely to succeed in your development projects.
Enhanced Code Quality:
- Standardising code commits enforces best practices in coding, making it essential for developers to write clean, maintainable, and error-free code.
- By defining specific guidelines for commits, you ensure that developers follow a consistent and rigorous approach to coding, reducing the likelihood of introducing coding errors or bugs.
- Code quality is a fundamental factor in reducing the failure rate of changes. Higher-quality code is less likely to result in runtime errors or unexpected issues during deployment.
Improved Traceability:
- standardised code commits include clear and informative commit messages and descriptions. This documentation is crucial for tracking the changes made to the codebase.
- Enhanced traceability allows development teams to understand why a particular change was made, which issue or user story it addresses, and how it affects the overall system.
- When issues or failures arise, having well-documented commits makes it easier to identify the source of the problem and the specific code changes that may have caused it.
Clarity in Development Projects:
- Standardisation provides consistency in code commits and pull requests, making it easier for developers, reviewers, and stakeholders to understand the intent behind each change.
- Clear commit messages and descriptions ensure that everyone involved in the project can quickly grasp the purpose of a change, the associated requirements, and the expected outcomes.
- This clarity reduces misunderstandings and miscommunications, which can lead to errors and project delays, thereby contributing to lower change failure rates.
Efficient Code Review:
- standardised code commits make the code review process more efficient. Reviewers can quickly assess whether code changes adhere to the established guidelines.
- When reviewers know what to expect from a well-structured commit, they can focus their attention on code logic and functionality, rather than spending time on code style and formatting issues.
- Efficient code reviews help catch potential problems early in the development process, preventing issues from surfacing during deployment.
Reduced Regression Errors:
- Clear commit documentation helps in understanding the context and purpose of code changes. This is particularly crucial in identifying potential side effects or regression errors caused by the introduction of new code.
- By minimising regression errors, you decrease the chances of changes causing unintended consequences and disrupting existing functionality.
Easier Bug Identification and Remediation:
- When issues do arise, standardised code commits provide a roadmap for debugging and fixing problems.
- Developers can quickly identify which commit introduced a particular issue and refer to the commit message and description to understand the changes made.
- This expedites the bug-fixing process and reduces the mean time to recover (MTTR), a key metric for minimising the impact of failures.
Conclusion
In the rapid and transfomative space of software development, code commit standardisation is imperative for consistency and quality. By implementing a standardised approach to code commits and PRs, you can transform your development process, improve traceability, and elevate your code quality. Embrace this change and experience the benefits of a more streamlined, efficient, and effective software development journey.
Ready to journey with us and drive your software development process to the next level? Contact our engineering team today to learn how we can help you implement code commit standardisation and boost your development success.
