robbie.morrison initiated a feature request to add commit message functionality when editing topic titles, tags, or categories, noting the current inability to explain motives for such changes. While JammyDodger clarified that edit messages exist for post content, they confirmed the option is missing for direct title edits. Moin and JammyDodger discovered that attempting to add an edit message via the first post’s edit button creates two separate revisions instead of one, which is confusing. robbie.morrison confirmed this workaround fails to produce a single coherent revision with both the change and the reason. Although awesomerobot initially suggested using the pencil icon under the first post, Moin noted this is not available for users with specific topic-editing permissions who cannot edit other users’ posts. After further testing by NateDhaliwal and others confirming the double-revision bug, awesomerobot announced a fix is in development to resolve the issue, aiming to merge it soon via this pull request.
Is it possible to leave a commit message — a note explaining the reasons for your changes — when tweaking a topic title, later adding or removing topic tags, and/or shifting categories?
It is normally always useful to let others know your motives for making such changes.
If this facility does not exist, please treat this query as a feature request. TIA and best
When editing a post, you can add an edit message using the 
style icon in the composer:
Clicking on that will open up a box to add a message:
Though changes made using the topic title edit pencil don’t have the same option.
Thanks. That was my impression. Being a programmer, I get nervous when I cannot leave a note for those who might follow along behind.
Is your edit message shown in the same revision as the title edit when you do that?
Apparently not. When editing only the title, it seems to create a second revision for the edit message instead.
Let’s flip it to Contribute > Feature 
To let you know that I guess you can vote up 
this feature request by clicking on the blue Vote button on the very top left.
When I edit a topic title (as opposed to a posting) — usually to correct a typo or add tags — I don’t get the opportunity to add a commit message.
I think that feature would be useful, particularly as I often edit under admin rights and it could be helpful to explain that context.
If you use the 
under the first post you can, a little less convenient, but possible
I don’t think it’s possible for everyone. If you are permitted to edit topics (category, tag, and title) because you are a member of one of the groups in the edit all topic groups settings but not in a group allowed to edit posts written by other users (edit all post groups), the button below the post is not available. By default, users with TL3 are allowed to edit all topics but not all posts. However, I must admit that I have never felt the need to provide a reason for these edits. Usually those changes are self-explanatory, and the revision is all you need to understand.
I cannot locate the little yellow south-east pointing pencil icon mentioned earlier by @awesomerobot.
Here is what I see when I edit either the title field or list of tags:
Regarding the question of use‑cases:
My community are mostly coders. So they would be quite happy to see a revised date or tag for some hypothetical webinar say captured in the commit log. Potentially useful information.
Got it. My discourse is provided by Communiteq so the old interface still applies at this juncture.
That second editing feature is useful to know. Tx.
Sorry people — that editing “trick” does not work. You end up with two changes, the first with the tags but no commit message. And the second with no changes but the entered commit message. And those together make no sense.
We really do need dedicated commit message functionality for direct edits to the title field and/or tags list. TIA.
@NateDhaliwal Have you tried that?
Did it result in only one revision for you? When I tried it in 2024 it resulted in exactly that: 2 revisions. And it still seems to be the same:
I just tried the same process on a slightly non-current version of Discourse (as provided by the Communiteq hosting service) and my result was identical: two commits from the one alteration to the title field with some change log text also added.
Yup, my bad! I guess I saw wrongly. There is indeed 2 revisions!
I’ve got a fix in the works that will solve the issue with the double revision on editing the title/tag/category only and adding an edit reason… will hopefully be merged next week!
That’s fantastic. Tx.
