10+ things I always setup in git when I prepare a new environment

#git #tips

When you buy a car or a bicycle, you first adjust the seat position and saddle height to suit your body size.　It is the same with git configuration.

In this article, I will share the git setup I use all the time.

User name & Mail address

git config --global user.name "<name>" && \
git config --global user.email "<email>"

Replace <name> with my name and <email> with my mail address.

Alias for existing command

git config --global alias.co checkout
git config --global alias.st status
git config --global alias.br branch

Global ignore setting

git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore_global

This allows you to put your own specific ignore settings in ~/.gitignore_global in addition to the .gitignore for each project, which will be applied to all git operations across all projects.

Push only the branch you are now working on

git config --global push.default simple

Make `--rebase` the default behavior during git pull

git config --global pull.rebase true

This prevents unintentional creation of a merge commit if the branch being pulled has been modified locally.

Make `--prune` the default behavior during git fetch

git config --global fetch.prune true

This will remove local branches that were deleted remotely when git fetch or git pull was performed.

Set the width of indentation for tab characters

git config --global core.pager 'less -x4'

In this example, the pager (less command) option specifies tab indent width as 4

Use `nvim` as the editor to be used when committing

git config --global core.editor 'nvim'

I use several different text editors for different purposes, but I prefer to use nvim with git commit.

Do not fast-forward when merging

git config --global --add merge.ff false
git config --global --add pull.ff only

Fast-forward merging makes it difficult to follow the history of work on a branch. Therefore, avoid unintentional fast-forwards when merging.
However, fast-forwarding is not a problem for git pull cases in most cases ¹, so we enforce fast-forwarding in the case of pulls.
See also: gitのmerge --no-ff のススメ - Qiita

Output line numbers in the result of `git grep`

git config --global grep.lineNumber true

Visualize differences in whitespace (including newline codes)

git config diff.wsErrorHighlight all

EDIT: 2022-07-31

dotfile

As mentioned in the comments, these are stored in .gitconfig. And I have added these settings to the dotfiles repository.

https://github.com/snaka/my-dotfiles/blob/master/.gitconfig

Thanks to all who commented.

Latest comments (30)

François • Aug 28 '22

Hey :) Great post, thanks for sharing!

How would you deal with 2 git emails on the same laptop?
one for github (perso) and one for work (pro)

The best would be to default to the email perso (and the associated GPG key), and when working from ~/Projects, always use the work email
Not sure if it is feasible ^^