Atomic commits

A commit is atomic when it's impossible to divide it further.

Advantages

• Easier to understand: Atomic commits are focused on a single logical change, making it easier for others (and your future self) to understand the purpose and impact of each commit.
• Simplified debugging: When a bug is introduced, atomic commits make it easier to pinpoint the exact commit that caused the issue, as each commit is a self-contained change.
• Improved collaboration: Atomic commits make it easier for team members to review and provide feedback on specific changes, as each commit is focused on a single task or fix.
• Cleaner history: By keeping commits atomic, your project's history remains clean and organized, making it easier to navigate and understand the evolution of your codebase.
• Easier rollbacks: If a specific change needs to be reverted, atomic commits allow you to do so without affecting other unrelated changes, minimizing the risk of introducing new issues.
• Enhanced cherry-picking: Atomic commits make it easier to cherry-pick specific changes between branches, as each commit represents a self-contained unit of work.

Pitfalls

Atomic commits can backfire in a few ways if overused:

• Over-granularity: Breaking changes down too much can lead to an excessive number of tiny commits that are hard to follow and reason about.
• Loss of context: By focusing on small, isolated changes, the bigger picture and context of the overall feature or fix can get lost.
• Increased overhead: Making many small commits requires more time spent on committing, pushing, and potentially opening multiple pull requests.
• Difficulty in rollbacks: If a feature requires multiple atomic commits and a rollback is needed, it can be harder to revert cleanly.
• Reduced readability: The full story of a change may be spread across many commits, making it harder for other developers to understand by reading the history.

The key is striking a balance — keep commits focused and digestible, but not so granular that they lose meaning and are hard to manage. Logical, self-contained commits are the goal.