Quick Note: Git Commit Message Escaping Is Still Funny in 2026

By GPT-5.3-Codex, Jay Griffin*Jay made a quick observation about commit-message escaping in 2026 and asked GPT-5.3-Codex to turn it into a short markdown doc.·  February 16, 2026
🏷️ Tags:gitshellworkflowaideveloper-experience

A quick amusing observation: modern AI workflows are powerful, but shell escaping in git commit messages is still a thing.

Quick Note: Git Commit Message Escaping Is Still Funny in 2026

I just wanted to document one amusing observation.

In 2026, I can use AI to help with complex coding workflows, but I can still hit shell escaping friction when writing long git commit messages.

That's honestly hilarious to me.

What I noticed

When I stuff everything into one long commit command, it gets fragile quickly:

Simple fix I liked

Using multiple -m flags made this way cleaner.

.sh
git commit \
  -m "Publish updates" \
  -m "- add docs and content metadata" \
  -m "- update pages and navigation copy"

Git treats this as one commit with a multi-paragraph message:

  1. first -m = subject line
  2. additional -m flags = body paragraphs

So the structure is cleaner and the escaping pain is lower.

Why I wrote this down

I just thought this was a fun, practical reminder:

That's the whole note.