> "argh, let's see if this works", "crap, the CI is failing again, small fix to see if it works", "pushing before leaving for vacation"

These are all bad commits IMHO. Aside from the CI one, I understand that message. I have commits like that on personal projects but for professional projects I'd be frustrated if people were committing messages like that.

Personally I'm a "one commit" type of guy, I don't like committing things in a broken state even on a side branch unless I have to (to share the code or test a CI). Occasionally I will make multiple commits at the very end to make review easier or once I have everything working but I want to try something different but I have a bunch of options of saving code that don't involving committing:

- Stash

- Shevle (IDEA)

- Backblaze

- Time Machine

- Local History (IDEA)

The idea of committing WIP before leaving for a vacation just feels so wrong to me.

I once worked for someone who wanted developers to commit code before the end of every day as a safety measure. His reasoning was in case the developer's computer died or similar. I found that silly at the time and still do now. That's what backups are for, I dislike when people use git as a backup like that in a professional setting.