Introduction

Using Commitizen cli

About¶

Commitizen is a powerful release management tool that helps teams maintain consistent and meaningful commit messages while automating version management.

What Commitizen Does¶

By enforcing standardized commit conventions (defaulting to Conventional Commits), Commitizen helps teams:

Write clear, structured commit messages
Automatically manage version numbers using semantic versioning
Generate and maintain changelogs
Streamline the release process

Key Benefits¶

With just a simple cz bump command, Commitizen handles:

Version Management: Automatically bumps version numbers and updates version files based on your commit history
Changelog Generation: Creates and updates changelogs following the Keep a changelog format
Commit Standardization: Enforces consistent commit message formats across your team

This standardization makes your commit history more readable and meaningful, while the automation reduces manual work and potential errors in the release process.

Features¶

Interactive CLI for standardized commits with default Conventional Commits support
Intelligent version bumping using Semantic Versioning
Automatic keep a changelog generation
Built-in commit validation with pre-commit hooks
Customizable commit rules and templates
Multi-format version file support
Custom rules and plugins via pip

Getting Started¶

Requirements¶

Before installing Commitizen, ensure you have:

Python 3.10+
Git 1.8.5.2+

Installation¶

Global Installation (Recommended)¶

The recommended way to install Commitizen is using pipx or uv, which ensures a clean, isolated installation:

Using pipx:

# Install Commitizen
pipx install commitizen

# Keep it updated
pipx upgrade commitizen

Using uv:

# Install commitizen
uv tool install commitizen

# Keep it updated
uv tool upgrade commitizen

(For macOS users) Using Homebrew:

brew install commitizen

Project-Specific Installation¶

You can add Commitizen to your Python project using any of these package managers:

Using pip:

pip install -U commitizen

Using conda:

conda install -c conda-forge commitizen

Using Poetry:

# For Poetry >= 1.2.0
poetry add commitizen --group dev

# For Poetry < 1.2.0
poetry add commitizen --dev

Using uv:

uv add --dev commitizen

Using pdm:

pdm add