Body Structure — Paragraph Spacing & Impact-First Writing

Status: Scaffold — to be filled with deep dive on commit body conventions.

The Five-Part Structure

1. Sense-making summary (first paragraph)
2. Impact statement (what changes)
3. Breakdown by concern (cluster related changes)
4. Affected files (list)
5. Also included (riders)

Paragraph Spacing Rules

The golden rule: Blank lines between concerns.

TBD: Examples of good vs bad spacing, when to combine concerns into one paragraph.

Impact-First Writing

Focus on what changes, not how you changed it.

TBD: Before/after examples, common pitfalls, rewriting implementation-focused text to be impact-focused.

The “Also Included” Pattern

When to use riders:

• Typo fixes
• Debug cleanup (removed console.log)
• Formatting tweaks
• Unrelated small changes that aren’t worth their own commit

TBD: Examples, guidelines for what counts as a rider vs. deserves its own commit.