Multiple git configs (profiles) on one computer

How to let git know which profile should be used in specific folders?

Imagine that you’re working for over one company. each company you have a different name, and a separate email address. Using a global git profile with your personal email address works, but GitLab won’t display your avatar correctly as your account email. So how to do that?

The include and includeIf sections allow you to include config directives from another source. So my idea is creating a separate folder for each environment (or company) and then using includeIf to let gitconfig including the correct config profile. Try it now!

Step 1: Create a separate folder for each environment

personal: For personal projects
google: For Google projects
facebook: For Facebook projects

Step 2: Create gitconfig file for each environment

You can create files anywhere with the following content:

~/.gitconfig-personal

[user]
    name = JackTT
    email = [e-mail]

~/.gitconfig-google

[user]
    name = JackTT
    email = [e-mail]

~/.gitconfig-facebook*

[user]
    name = JackTT
    email = [e-mail]

Step 3: Create the main gitconfig

Create ~/.gitconfig file with the following content:

[includeIf "gitdir:/Volumes/Data/personal/"]
    path = ~/.gitconfig-personal
[includeIf "gitdir:/Volumes/Data/google/"]
    path = ~/.gitconfig-google
[includeIf "gitdir:/Volumes/Data/facebook/"]
        path = ~/.gitconfig-facebook

Now, cd to the personal folder then type “ git config user.email”, you can see [e-mail]. Try it in the google folder, you will see “[e-mail]”.

References

https://git-scm.com/docs/git-config#_includes

Comments

[Kwakou Steve 🐧]

Hi, Thanks for your post.
I would like to understand more:
in what does it differ from just doing a: git config --local user.email in each of the different company folders ?

[Jack]

@kwakous git config --local user.email can only be used inside a git repository.