How I've configured Git

After yesterday's post on why I prefer using Git on the command line rather than using a GUI tool, today I thought that I'd post about how I've configured Git.

First, I rarely ever run the git command - I usually run a g function that I've created within my zsh configuration.

Rather than being an simple alias, it's a shell function that will run git status -sb to show the current status of the repository if there are no additional arguments. If there are, such as when running g add, then this is executed as a normal Git command. (This is something that I first saw from Thoughtbot, if I remember correctly).

Using .gitconfig

The main part of my configuration is within Git's ~/.gitconfig file, where I can configure Git to work how I want.

For example, I like to avoid merge conflicts, so I always want to use fast-forward merges whilst pulling and also to rebase by default. I can do this by adding ff = only and rebase = true to the [pull] section of my ~/.gitconfig file.

I can do this manually, or running git config --global pull.rebase true will set the option but also update the file automatically.

Some of the tweaks that I've made are to only allow fast-forward merges by adding merge.ff = only, automatically squash commits when rebasing by setting rebase.autosquash = true, and automatically pruning branches by adding fetch.prune = true.

Simple aliases

Another way that I configure Git is using aliases, which are also within the ~/.gitconfig file.

For example, if I ran git config --global alias.b "branch", then running git b would just run git branch which shortens the command and saves some time and keystrokes.

I have similar one- or two letter "short" aliases for pushing and pulling code, and some that also set some additional arguments such as aa for add --all and worktrees for worktree list.

More complicated aliases

Aliases can be more complex if needed by prefixing it with a !, meaning that it executes it as a shell command.

This means that I can have repush = !git pull --rebase && git push to chain two separate Git commands and combine them into one, and ureset = !git reset --hard $(git upstream) which executes the full command, including another alias as part of it.

I also have issues = !gh issue list --web and pulls = !gh pr list --web to open the current repository's GitHub issues or pull requests respectively, which can be done as it's not limited to just running git commands.

Custom functions

Finally, if an alias is getting too long or complex, then it can extracted to it's own file.

Any executable file within your $PATH that starts with git- will automatically become a Git command.

One example that I have is git-cm which, similar to the g function`, is a bash script that checks for any arguments passed to it and runs a slightly different command. It achieves the same thing as if it were an alias, but it does make it easier to write and maintain as it's in a separate file.

These are just some examples. If you want to see my entire configuration, then check out my dotfiles repository on GitHub.

How have you configured Git for your workflow? Reply to this email and let me know.