bug: `git commit --verbose` not removing text below scissor-line

Thank you for filling out a Git bug report! Please answer the following questions to help us understand your issue.

What did you do before the bug happened? (Steps to reproduce your issue)
1. Run `git ci -a`
2. Edit COMMIT_EDITMSG (using vscode)
3. Save&Close

What did you expect to happen? (Expected behavior) generated git commit message does not include text below the scissor-line.

What happened instead? (Actual behavior) generated git commit message has the entire text below the scissor-line included.

What's different between what you expected and what actually happened? text below the scissor-line included in the generated commit message.

Anything else you want to add: related config: core.editor = code --wait commit.verbose = true alias.ci = commit

Please review the rest of the bug report below. You can delete any lines you don't wish to share.

[System Info]
git version:
git version 2.50.1
cpu: arm64
no commit associated with this build
sizeof-long: 8
sizeof-size_t: 8
shell-path: /bin/sh
feature: fsmonitor--daemon
libcurl: 8.7.1
zlib: 1.2.12
SHA-1: SHA1_DC
SHA-256: SHA256_BLK
uname: Darwin 24.5.0 Darwin Kernel Version 24.5.0: Tue Apr 22 19:54:25
PDT 2025; root:xnu-11417.121.6~2/RELEASE_ARM64_T6020 arm64
compiler info: clang: 17.0.0 (clang-1700.0.13.3)
libc info: no libc information available
$SHELL (typically, interactive shell): /bin/zsh

[Enabled Hooks]

Oren Levi <orenl@exon-media.com> writes:

As you have commit.verbose set, and your "ci" is merely a short-hand for "commit", this is "git commit -a -v". It should give us a patch text after a scissors line, that looks like

    #
    # ------------------------ >8 ------------------------
    # Do not modify or remove the line above.
    # Everything below it will be ignored.
    diff --git c/builtin/fetch.c i/builtin/fetch.c
    index d48262bdc7..3267617a54 100644
    --- c/builtin/fetch.c
    +++ i/builtin/fetch.c
    @@ -640,9 +640,6 @@ static struct ref *get_ref_map(struct remote *remote,
            return ref_map;
     }

Here is what I did as a quick sanity check

    $ git checkout --detach HEAD
    $ git reset --soft HEAD~23
    $ git commit -a -v

and

 (1) I do see the "# ---- >8 ----" followed by "# Do not modify or
     remove the line above."

 (2) after making edit near the top of the file, without touching
     anything around the "---- >8 ----" line, saving the file made a
     commit.

 (3) "git show" does show the patch after the log message, but "git
     show -s" or "git cat-file commit HEAD" do not, i.e. "Everything
     below is ignored." the message says was true.

so, in short, does not reproduce for me with the info provided.

Since I do not use vscode, my reproduction attempt used an editor different from it. It is possible that your editor may be mangling the line that it is not supposed to touch, but that is not something I can tell.

On Thu, Jul 10, 2025 at 11:50 AM Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:

I don't use vscode either, but I did install it (in a Linux VM) to test this. Like you, I was unable to reproduce the problem using the provided recipe. My attempt was using the factory settings for VScode, which may be different from the settings used by the OP.