Commit parsing options

How commit messages are parsed and what an error in one does to the run. The message format itself is in the commit message reference.

commitErrors

What an error in a commit message does to the run.

Value	Effect
warn (default)	The offending unit contributes nothing and the run continues. Other units in the same commit still apply.
error	Any commit error stops the run before anything is built, published or tagged.

warn is the blast radius the spec assigns to unit- and message-scoped errors: a malformed header or a scope naming an unknown package is an authoring mistake in one unit, and the rest of the history is unaffected. error is the stricter reading, and the one to choose when a mistyped scope silently dropping a package from a release is the worse failure of the two.

Neither value affects repository-scoped failures: a prerelease tag with no numeric counter, a computed version that would not exceed the baseline, a graduation that would go backwards, a dependency cycle. Those mean no correct plan exists, so the run always aborts before releasing anything. They are fixed by correcting the repository (usually a tag) and re-running, not by editing a commit.

Diagnostics are printed either way, with their code (E130, W193, ...), the package and the commit, unless parser.quiet hides the parser's own, which changes what you read and nothing about what the run does.

nonPackageScopes

Scope names that are deliberately not packages, so naming one is not the typo the unknown-package error exists to catch. A unit scoping only these resolves to nothing, silently and with no diagnostic.

The default is ["release"], and it is load-bearing rather than cosmetic. dispat's own release commit is chore(release): {tags}. Without the exemption, every run in commit mode would leave an error behind for the next run to trip over. Under commitErrors: "error" that would be a tool that breaks its own repository on the second release. Add your own conventions (deps, ci, ...) as needed; setting it to [] disables the exemption entirely.

parser

The commit-message parser options. Everything is optional: an absent parser object (or any unset field) keeps the default, so existing configurations parse exactly as before. An invalid value fails the config load, before any planning.

One setting deserves calling out before the table. propagation.depth changes propagation from opt-in to on-by-default. With the default 0, a plain feat(core): releases core alone and reach must be written per commit (^, ^^, +N). With 1, every bump reaches its direct consumers with no caret written; all reaches every transitive consumer. A directive on the unit always wins over the default. Teams coming from tools with automatic propagation usually want 1 here; teams that want blast radius readable from each commit keep 0.

Key	Default	Description
separator	---	The unit separator line. At least three ASCII-printable characters, no whitespace, must not begin like a type. Repositories exchanging patches by mail often use %%%.
types	the standard table	Map of commit type → bump (none, patch, minor, major). A non-empty map replaces the standard table (feat=minor, fix/perf/revert=patch, the rest none) wholesale, so list every type you keep. Names are a-z only (viper lowercases keys anyway).
quiet	false	Hide the parser's own diagnostics from the log; see Quiet.
strictTypes	false	Turn an unknown commit type into an error (E140) instead of a warning; the commitErrors policy decides whether that stops the run.
lenient	false	Downgrade selected authoring errors to warnings: an uppercase type is lowercased, a missing space after : is accepted, a footer contradicting an inline directive wins.
maxDescriptionLength	100	The long-description warning threshold, in Unicode scalar values; negative disables it.
propagation.bump	patch	The bump consumers take when a unit propagates without saying which: none, patch, minor, major or inherit (copy the unit's own bump).
propagation.depth	0	The default propagation depth: a number of edges or all. See the note above the table.
propagation.channelDepth	0	The channel-axis counterpart: how far a channel travels by default.
propagation.kinds	all but devDependencies	The dependency edges propagation follows: dependencies, peerDependencies, optionalDependencies, devDependencies, or the wildcard * for every kind.
propagation.channel	inherit	The default propagated channel value.
limits.unitsPerMessage	64	Most ----separated units one commit message may carry. The three limits.* keys are always-enforced parser bounds: exceeding one voids the whole message (E158), and a negative value disables that bound (trusted input only).
limits.scopeTermsPerUnit	256	Most scope terms (names, globs, exclusions) one unit's scope-set may carry.
limits.messageBytes	1048576	Largest commit message parsed, in bytes (1 MiB).
allowedChannels	unrestricted	Restrict prerelease channel names (E181 outside the list); stable is always accepted.
messageLevelTrailers	Signed-off-by, Co-authored-by, ...	Authorship/review trailers ignored wherever they appear. Setting the key replaces the list.
issueTrailers	Closes, Fixes, Refs, Resolves	Issue-reference trailers, ignored for versioning but surfaced for changelogs. Setting the key replaces the list.

parser:
  types: { feat: minor, fix: patch, perf: patch, revert: patch, docs: patch }
  strictTypes: true
  propagation:
    depth: 1        # bundled dependencies: a bump reaches direct consumers by default

Quiet

A repository whose history predates the convention earns a diagnostic on nearly every old commit, and the noise buries the findings that matter. parser.quiet: true hides the parser's own findings from the log: the ones about the text of a commit message, codes E0xx/E1xx and W0xx/W1xx.

parser:
  quiet: true

It is a display decision and only that. Every diagnostic is still raised, still counted, and still does whatever it did before: under commitErrors: "error" a hidden error still refuses the release, and a repository-scoped failure still aborts the run. The plan-diagnostics summary line reports how many lines went unprinted, so "nothing is wrong" and "you asked not to see it" never look the same:

INF plan diagnostics warnings=12 errors=1 hidden=13

Findings about the workspace rather than the message are never hidden: an unknown scope (E130), a catch-up (W193), a blocked package (W194), a package a selection could not release yet (W230). They explain a release outcome that a reader of the commit log alone cannot account for, which is the whole reason they exist.

The --quiet-parser flag overrides the config in both directions:

dispat status --quiet-parser         # hide them for this invocation
dispat status --quiet-parser=false   # show them again, whatever the config says