+1 for the proposal

Regardless of the defaults, every committer should ensure that title
and body of the merged commit accurately reflects its diff.

-Max

On Mon, Aug 3, 2026 at 9:48 PM Kevin Liu <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> 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

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