Initial Commit

When you make the initial commit on a new repo, write a dedication in the description the commit.

commit e0fc93ae66b5a0637cb8a8be8513f1f05dd5df97
Author: Harry Khanna <harry@khanna.law>
Date:   Tue Sep 14 01:04:59 2021 -0400
 
    Initial commit
 
    For Lisa, my whole heart.

The subject line stays Initial commit. Underneath, where the description goes, that paragraph of space almost no one fills in, write a line for someone who matters to you. When I made my django-base starter repo, I dedicated it to my wife: For Lisa, my whole heart. The repo is a Django boilerplate. The dedication has nothing to do with Django. Lisa will probably never run git log on it. But it's there, and it changes how the project feels to me when I come back to it.

It's permanent. The initial commit can't be edited without rewriting history, so the line is locked into the project for as long as the project exists, which often outlasts the relationships, jobs, and companies that surround its creation. It's discreet. It doesn't touch the README, doesn't show up on the homepage, doesn't ask anything of anyone. You have to git log to the very beginning to find it. It costs you nothing: ten extra seconds before the first push.

Books have done this forever. Open almost any novel and there's a dedication on its own page before the story starts. Software doesn't really have an equivalent. We ship millions of lines a year and almost none of it is signed for anyone, no front matter, no inscription, just a license file and a README pitched at strangers. The initial commit's description could be that missing page. It's the first thing in the history of the project, sitting quietly underneath everything you'll ever build on top of it.

Next time you git init something, take the extra ten seconds.