Good question thank you. Yes anyone can create their own template, exactly the way they want. A git template is simply a plain text file with a tiny smattering

Good question thank you. Yes anyone can create their own template, exactly the way they want. A git template is simply a plain text file with a tiny smattering of special syntax such as for the git trailers. > The second point makes sense if you use multiple issue trackers, but doesn't make sense if you're standardized on Github Issues. It turns out it still makes sense to use full URLs, for example if you care about automating workflows, because popular parsers are able to scan for URLs and link them. For example, popular parsers are able to scan "https://github.com/foo/bar/issues/123 https://github.com/foo/bar/issues/123" as a URL then automatically link to its destination. For contrast, popular parsers are not preconfigured to scan "#123" as a GitHub issue tracker id, nor automatically link to its destination. If you try reading commit messages with URLs versus issue ids in a variety of editors, you'll likely see the effect as the URLs do automatic linking. We like this convenience. Of course YMMV and do what's right for you and your project.