Good vimrc settings for commit messages?

Question

Having vim setup for development gives some undesirable effects for editing commit messages (margin not 72, auto-indent typically isn't needed, probably literal tab characters aren't desired, maybe strip trailing space on save?... etc).

What are good filetype options for git commit messages?

function MyFTypeGitCommit()
  " Good options for commit messages.
endfunc

autocmd FileType gitcommit call MyFTypeGitCommit()

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Note, I could post my settings but not sure they're worth promoting for others to use, if someone has this figured out it's likely going to be a more useful answer.

Answer 1

Posting own answer, in case others find it useful.

function MyFTypeGitCommit()
  " Check spelling.
  setlocal spell
  " Make bad spelling very obvious! (personal preference).
  :hi SpellBad ctermbg=red ctermfg=white guibg=red guifg=white

  " Never auto-indent.
  setlocal indentexpr=''

  " No literal tabs, indent 4.
  setlocal expandtab shiftwidth=4 tabstop=4

  " Margin for emails, make it obvious where 72 characters is.
  setlocal textwidth=72
  setlocal colorcolumn=+1

  " Strip space on save.
  fun! <SID>StripTrailingWhitespaces()
    let l = line(".")
    let c = col(".")
    %s/\s\+$//e
    call cursor(l, c)
  endfun
  autocmd BufWritePre <buffer> :call <SID>StripTrailingWhitespaces()
endfun

autocmd FileType gitcommit call MyFTypeGitCommit()

Answer 2

I am using this in ftplugin/gitcommit.vim:

" Enable spellchecking
if has('spell')
  setlocal spell
endif

" Automatically wrap at 72 characters
setlocal textwidth=72