Squash and merge - lost committer

[slawekjaranowski]

When use Squash and merge options from GUI, person which do such actions is lost.

In commit we have GitHub as committer.

Author:     Author of PR <[email protected]>
Commit:    GitHub <[email protected]>

But with Rebase and merge committer is preserved

Author:     Author of PR <[email protected]>
Commit:    Committer Name <committer@email...>

[slawekjaranowski]

any comments?

[bmarwell]

Works for me. GitHub did the squash, so it is the committer.

[slawekjaranowski]

So maybe person who initiate action should be added to commit message, eg as co-author or something else.
Yes I know I can edit squash message myself 😄

[HannesWell]

This behavior is bothering me as well, especially since the information is available.

If it would great if one could at least choose to use the actor as committer, even if that means signatures are not possible (see https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/32934#discussioncomment-5776296) via a configuration option.

Works for me. GitHub did the squash, so it is the committer.

Github also did the rebase when one clicks Rebase and merge but still the person who clicked is recorded as committer. If that's the metric, then Rebase and merge would be broken.

[jmarshall]

I agree that this is annoying: the squash may have been done via GitHub, but it is the committing person who is responsible for the decision to merge. So it is them who should be recorded in Commit[ter], not GitHub.

GitHub staff have commented in the past (see isaacs/github#1368 (comment)) that they do this so that they can sign the resulting commit. (The bug discussed in that thread is still present and still breaks author information to this day.)

[jmjoy]

Not many people care whether the commit is verified or not. GitHub fails to mark the committer for this trivial matter and does not provide any configurable options.

[HannesWell]

I can only second that.
At least an option to choose between a signed committ with Github as committer and an unsigned commit with the real person as committer would be great.

[jmjoy]

I like squash and merge, because it can make the commit log neater and can reference PR, but I also hate that squash and merge rudely loses the Committer information and changes it to GitHub itself (GitHub <[email protected]>), which I think is an insult to the committer.

[jmjoy]

https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/144271

[i386x]

@jmjoy Imho this is because the final commit message is fabricated. There is more:

• it adds a PR number enclosed between parentheses at the end of a commit message title (not an issue actually, but for me it was a surprise)
• it also changes the email address of Author to your primary email address you have set in your GitHub profile
• and the more painful one: when you edit your commit message and git push -f your topic branch, the fabricated commit message going to the base branch discards the changes, using the very first version text of a commit message (see details I described here: Squash and merge mangles commit messages trustification/trustify-tests#41)