Why is git prompting me for a post-pull merge commit message?

git git-pull
shanebonham picture shanebonham · Jul 31, 2012 · Viewed 70.5k times · Source

Recently, following any git pull, git has started spawning my text editor, and asking for a merge commit message. A commit message is already pre-filled, and I just have to save and close the window to complete the pull.

In the past, it would do the merge silently, with a standard commit message (along the lines of Merge branch 'dev' of remote.com:/repo into dev).

I recently updated git to version 1.7.11.3 (via homebrew), but can't think of anything else I might have done to change this behavior. Is this a setting, or is there otherwise some way of getting back to the way it was?

Answer

Christopher picture Christopher · Jul 31, 2012

In git 1.7.10, the git developers decided merge commits could be made too easily. As explained in this blog post, forcing the interactive commit message behavior should make those commit messages more detailed and could reduce the overall frequency of unnecessary merges.

You can use the --no-edit flag to avoid this behavior, but, well, don't. Merge commits, like any commits to history, should be well constructed. Your history should be nothing but useful.

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