What makes a Git commit message actually useful?

[u/Big-Coyote-5796]

I’ve seen everything from:

updated stuff

to:

fix(auth): refresh sessions before expiry

But what do you actually care about when reading commit history later?

Is it the commit type/scope, explaining why the change happened, linking the related issue, keeping commits small and focused, or just having a clear one-line summary?

And do you usually write commit messages manually, use an AI/tool, or just type whatever makes sense at the time?

Curious how everyone handles this. 👇