These are the git hooks I use. Drop them into your repo's .git/hooks directory if you feel like it, or make the hooks global for all your projects.

This prepends every commit message with the current branch description, after the commit message is set. I use a GitHub emoji code to describe each branch.

My master branch description for this repo is ⚓, and so:

$ git add commit-msg prepare-commit-msg
$ git commit -m "Add commit-msg and prepare-commit-msg hooks."
[master ee64377] :anchor: Add commit-msg and prepare-commit-msg hooks.
 2 files changed, 31 insertions(+)

This hook modifies the default commit message that is presented in editor before the message is saved. It currently modifies default merge commit message to make it snazzier.

$ git merge origin/branch-i-want

will produce the default message:

:part_alternation_mark:erge 'origin/branch-i-want' into this fine-ass branch right here

To make hooks global for all your projects:

$ git config --global init.templatedir '~/.git-templates'
$ git clone https://github.com/juliamae/githooks ~/.git-templates

Any newly initialized repo will have the hooks. To add them to an existing repo:

$ cd ~/code/repo_madness # Your existing repo.
$ git init