Git commit messages aren't just messages that you push to whatever central repository; they're also messages for yourself to review while squashing your local h

Git commit messages aren't just messages that you push to whatever central repository; they're also messages for yourself to review while squashing your local history before pushing. I usually make a git commit before testing my proposed change; I don't want to write the full-blown commit message before I know that the tests pass. In that case, -m is very useful to place a marker in the reflog for future reference, even though it won't end up as a message that you share with your collaborators.