Thoughts from @Jessica Rodriguez:

This is a good starting point, especially for someone who hasn’t worked with Git is a professional/large open-source environment. Here are a few things to consider (from my own experience):

• Most commit messages don’t need a body. In general, you should make small commits with clear changes that can be described with the summary. This makes it easier to follow changes, and figure out where something has gone wrong (see git-bisect). They can be collapsed into larger commits when merging in changes, if needed.
• Include a descriptor for your current topic. For example, if you have an issue number, you could use the format [ISSUE-NUMBER] Descriptive message