Empty commits are useful to indicate that lengthy, manually run tests match some prior good state in development branches. For example commits like... 1.Good

Empty commits are useful to indicate that lengthy, manually run tests match some prior good state in development branches. For example commits like... 1.Good 2.Refactor 3.Rewrite 4.Empty with goodness re: 1 5.Rewrite 6.Refactor ...and now you retest and something is broken. You have an easy way to isolate any issues as happening after #4. And you have left markers for yourself 6 months from now if something goes wrong after a merge (i.e. confirm 1 and 4 match).