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I wish people would stop saying "atomic commits" and start saying "main/master is stable", because that's what they actually mean. Every git commit is atomic, by definition... But people want every single possible revision to be green and buildable, which is different, and has nothing to do with git. I don't think it makes sense (tags are a lot more helpful for marking what is and isn't stable), but hey.

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Yes, atomic commits is not a very descriptive term. But main/master is stable is only a necessary condition, not a sufficient one.

If you squash (or mix from the beginning) several unrelated changes into a single commit, main/master would be stable.

AFAIK atomic commits means nothing can be taken away without breaking the change and nothing needs to be added to make the change work. How to express that without 2 clauses is indeed a good question.

Atomic commits ensure each change works independently.

That cannot be achieved in general. Later commits often depend on some earlier one.

People say what they mean.

“Atomic” sometimes means conceptually: does one thing. Sometimes it means “builds”. Or “works”. And yes: they do mean every single commit builds. Not just on main.

You don’t have to put words in people’s mouth.

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