I was initially proposing to change the setting for both the PR title and body. But I think you're right, changing the pr body setting will create too much noise.
Let's start by changing the PR title setting only, from `COMMIT_OR_PR_TITLE` to `PR_TITLE` (always use the PR title, even for 1 commit PR). Let's leave the PR body setting as is. This means - 1 commit in the PR → body is the commit's message. - 2 or more commits in the PR → body contains the list of commit messages Best, Kevin Liu On Mon, Aug 3, 2026 at 11:50 AM Daniel Weeks <[email protected]> wrote: > I'll work with ASF Infra to change the setting to use PR body and PR title > > > Just want to double check, you didn't mean PR body, right? (like the > description of the PR). That would be way too much to include in a commit > message. > > I'm actually not clear on where this landed. > > -Dan > > On Mon, Aug 3, 2026 at 11:38 AM Kevin Liu <[email protected]> wrote: > >> > At the same time, I'd encourage every committer to do a quick sanity >> check before merging. Rules help, but ultimately it's people who make the >> difference. >> >> Agree 100% :) >> >> > 1 commit in the PR → the default squash commit title is that commit's >> title, and the body is that commit's message. >> >> This is the scary case. The default is not what I would expect at all. >> >> >> Seems like we have broad support, and this is a fairly >> non-controversial change. I'll work with ASF Infra to change the setting to >> use PR body and PR title. That'll be a good starting point and it is >> ultimately up to the person merging to make sure the final commit reads >> well in git log. >> >> Thanks everyone! >> >> >> On Mon, Aug 3, 2026 at 11:27 AM Hongyue Zhang <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> +1 on the proposal but echo Yufei's take on more committer attention >>> required on PR merge. >>> >>> Two things worth checking: >>> 1. PR titles can arrive truncated like #17360 but committers can help >>> rewrite at merge. >>> 2. PR bodies carry more content than typical commit bodies, >>> like @dependabot usually bring the embedded html and sometimes @mentions. >>> Those markup does not tend to read well in git log. >>> >>> Hongyue Zhang >>> >>> On Mon, Aug 3, 2026 at 10:41 AM Yufei Gu <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> About three years ago, I worked with Anton on a few PRs. Before >>>> merging, he always reviewed everything carefully, including the PR title, >>>> and made any necessary changes. I think that's a good habit to continue, so >>>> I've tried to do the same. >>>> >>>> I'm supportive of having an explicit rule for things like this. At the >>>> same time, I'd encourage every committer to do a quick sanity check before >>>> merging. Rules help, but ultimately it's people who make the difference. >>>> >>>> Yufei >>>> >>>> >>>> On Mon, Aug 3, 2026 at 10:16 AM Neelesh Salian < >>>> [email protected]> wrote: >>>> >>>>> +1 to this. Saw multiple such cases during the 1.11 release curation. >>>>> >>>>> On Mon, Aug 3, 2026 at 9:20 AM Kevin Liu <[email protected]> >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Hey folks, >>>>>> >>>>>> I’m proposing that we change the GitHub squash-merge settings to >>>>>> populate the commit title and body from the PR’s title and description. >>>>>> >>>>>> The current settings may use the branch’s commit title and messages >>>>>> instead. This can produce unhelpful squash commits—such as “Initial >>>>>> commit”—and cause the commit history on main to differ from the PR >>>>>> content that was reviewed. >>>>>> >>>>>> Using the PR title and description would provide more consistent and >>>>>> useful commit history, regardless of how many commits a PR contains. >>>>>> >>>>>> More details: https://github.com/apache/iceberg/issues/17467 >>>>>> >>>>>> Thoughts? >>>>>> >>>>>> Thanks, >>>>>> Kevin >>>>>> >>>>>
