Using the commit description in the first timer template, different templates depending on filetype/directory

[NickColley]

We're making lots of first timer issues (thanks for leading the way) and I find that it's important to include specific context and not just jump into instructions for what to do.

1. Could we use the commit description when making the branch to populate a section above the step by step?

2. It'd also be useful to be able to have templates for certain filetypes, as we want to have different instruction steps for someone editing content (they can use the Github web interface) to someone who is editing code (likely will want to run it locally). We could use a format similar to the existing CODEOWNERS feature: https://help.github.com/articles/about-code-owners/

We're not currently using this bot but I'd like to explore it in the future and this'd be useful.

Here's an example of the kind of issues we're making: https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-design-system/issues/736

[gr2m]

👋 Nick!

Could we use the commit description when making the branch to populate a section above the step by step?

I don’t see a reason why not

It'd also be useful to be able to have templates

Maybe an alternative could also be to make the template configurable in the commit message, sth like Front Matter but at the end of the commit message?

Subject here

some more description bla bla bla

---
template: foo.md

But I agree that if we can avoid the configuration in the commit message, that would probably be better, needs less documentation, less error prone.

How would the configuration look like for it?

[NickColley]

The frontmatter idea sounds great, maybe having both would be useful...

I'd be happy to contribute these features if you're interested.

Potentially I should convince our team to run this first and then I'll have more of a real world scenario to test these ideas out.

So I'll close this for now but will open another issue to discuss the details more...