commit

Usage¶

Overview¶

The commit command provides an interactive way to create structured commits. Use either:

cz commit
cz c (shortcut)

By default, Commitizen uses conventional commits, but you can customize the commit rules to match your project's needs. See the customization guide for details.

Basic Usage¶

Interactive Commit Creation¶

Simply run cz commit in your terminal to start the interactive commit creation process. The command will guide you through creating a properly formatted commit message according to your configured rules.

Writing Messages to File¶

You can save the generated commit message to a file using:

cz commit --write-message-to-file COMMIT_MSG_FILE

This can be combined with --dry-run to only write the message without creating a commit. This is particularly useful for automatically preparing commit messages.

Advanced Features¶

Git Command Options¶

You can pass any git commit options using the -- syntax:

cz commit <commitizen-args> -- <git-cli-args>

# Examples:
cz c --dry-run -- -a -S  # Stage all changes and sign the commit
cz c -a -- -n            # Stage all changes and skip the pre-commit and commit-msg hooks

Warning

The --signoff option (or -s) is now recommended being used with the new syntax: cz commit -- -s. The old syntax cz commit --signoff is deprecated and will be removed in v5.

Retry¶

Use cz commit --retry to reuse the last commit message after a failed commit attempt
Set retry_after_failure: true in your configuration to automatically retry
Use cz commit --no-retry to force a new commit message prompt

Message Length Control¶

Control the length of your commit messages using the -l or --message-length-limit option:

cz commit -l 72  # Limits message length to 72 characters

Note

The length limit only applies to the first line of the commit message. For conventional commits, this means the limit applies from the type of change through the subject. The body and footer are not counted.

Technical Notes¶

For platform compatibility, the commit command disables ANSI escaping in its output. This means pre-commit hooks coloring will be deactivated as discussed in commitizen-tools/commitizen#417.

February 14, 2026