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How I Set Up Git Aliases on Bash

Jess Budd on August 13, 2019

It was almost 2 year agos I first saw someone in a tutorial using an alias for their git commands. I thought at the time it was something I should ...

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Haruan Justino • Nov 18 '19

anargh • Feb 6 '20

Made me giggle out of nowhere

Sahil • Feb 6 '20

Instead of polluting my .bashrc or .zshrc, I like to keep aliases in ~/.aliases file and then include them

if [ -f ~/.aliases ]; then
    . ~/.aliases
fi

Also, the best alias i ever made was

alias baa='subl ~/.aliases'

This alias enables me to open my alias file immediately to add more aliases.

Samuele Zanca • Mar 2 '20

Definetly going to steal your first snippet. Thank you

DJDole • Nov 18 '19 • Edited

They're not git aliases, but bash aliases for git commands.
You can also use bash functions within aliases, in order to provide richer functionality rather than mere command string replacement.

But one should avoid overuse of aliases, as it can severely hamper learning the raw commands.

Also, be sure to test the command the alias is defining.
Make sure you're not overriding any existing commands (unless that's your intention, I.E alias rm='trash').
You CAN after all, make an alias to replace even the most basic commands, and this can really screw your account...
alias ls='/bin/rm'

Sahil • Mar 2 '20

just check which new_alias and it will tell you if there is something existing and you don't override by mistake.

Roshan Sharma • Dec 30 '19

Great post!

I'd like to add that using zsh (an alternative to bash) with oh-my-zsh comes with an advantage - it does that for you!

So,
git push origin dev becomes gp origin dev
git fetch --all --prune becomes gfp
git log --graph becomes glg

... and lots more.

Raphaël Pinson • May 9 '20 • Edited

I use one or two letters aliases for the most used commands:

alias g='git'
alias k='kubectl'
alias d='docker'
alias t='terraform'
alias be='bundle exec'
alias s='summon'

and then Git aliases in ~/.gitconfig:

[alias]
    since = !git log $(git merge-base --fork-point master)..HEAD
    t = tag -s
    please = push --force-with-lease
    commend = commit --amend --no-edit
    pr = !"pr() { git fetch origin pull/$1/head:pr-$1; }; pr"
    branches = !"git for-each-ref --sort='-authordate:iso8601' --format=' %(color:green)%(authordate:iso8601)%09%(color:white)%(refname:short)' refs/heads"

As a result, most of my work in feature branches is a series of:

g commend
g please

until I'm happy with a PR 😁

justdaven • Dec 2 '19

These are great, Jess! Thank you!

To add my $.02, to get specifica about the "separate alias file" I would recommend putting these in the .bash_aliases file (one may not exist on your system, but the default .bashrc (at least in Ubuntu) has a command that will load it if it exists. It then makes the aliases more portable, in my opinion.

Zen • Feb 16 '20

Try to create upload file in ~/bin/.

Content:

git status
git add -A .
git commit -m "upload"
git push

Then, run sudo chmod +x upload.

Just type upload to push from local to Github.

Charles Merriam • Mar 20 '20

You missed the most important one!

 alias g='echo "
    gs = git status, what is staged or modified
    ga = git add <files>, add or stage files
    ....
    git init = start a new git repository
 "'

Now you can have a single key to remind you of all your git aliases! Maybe use 'c' for all the Conda aliases as well.

Adithya Sreyaj • Nov 17 '19

I've been using git aliases for quite a while. This makes the commands even shorter. Great!🤩

Can wait to set it up.
Thanks for sharing, Jess.

Jerrell Wade • Apr 17 '20 • Edited

I try to learn something new everyday and I didn't know the true conceptual meaning of alias pertaining to git cmd. as short cuts. Thank you and for the deferent links to other methods of setting them up. Master of none and noob to most. See bash alias for git ooowe or its just early, good morn.