Source

Most of the good stuff is from https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles!

User Section

Start off easy - here's how you set your email and name for commits:

[user]
    email = foo@bar.com
    name = Foo Bar

Bash Aliases

The Best One Letter Alias Ever

Start supercharging how you use git by creating a one-letter alias.

Add this to your ~/.bashrc file:

alias g="git"

You're already saving yourself a bunch of keystrokes, and we're just getting started!

Ending Bad Habits

This is a nice trick for getting yourself out of bad habits. My first time using a "sophisticated" branch worklow in git (i.e., not just committing and pushing to master all the time), I got in trouble for committing directly to master with a git push origin master (instead of making a feature branch and opening a pull request).

To get myself out of the habit of typing git push origin master, I wanted to map it to an alias that told me no. I did that by defining git to be a bash function (this works because functions take precedence over a binary named git on your path).

The git function checks the arguments that are passed to it. If the arguments are push origin master, it means I'm typing git push origin master, and I get a slap on the wrist.

Otherwise, it passes the arguments through to the git binary.

You can also put this in ~/.bashrc.

git() {
    if [[ $@ == "push origin master" ]]; then
        echo "nope"
    else
        command git "$@"
    fi
}

Alias section

In the ~/.gitconfig file, aliases specific to git can be defined in a section beginning with alias.

Log Utils

Let's start with some utilities for viewing git logs.

(You can never have too many ways to look at a git log.)

Note that we'll assume the alias bit in the following git config excerpts.

[alias]
    # courtesy of https://stackoverflow.com/a/34467298
    lg = !"git lg1"
    lg1 = !"git lg1-specific --all"
    lg2 = !"git lg2-specific --all"
    lg3 = !"git lg3-specific --all"

    lg1-specific = log --graph --abbrev-commit --decorate --format=format:'%C(bold blue)%h%C(reset) - %C(bold green)(%ar)%C(reset) %C(white)%s%C(reset) %C(dim white)- %an%C(reset)%C(auto)%d%C(reset)'
    lg2-specific = log --graph --abbrev-commit --decorate --format=format:'%C(bold blue)%h%C(reset) - %C(bold cyan)%aD%C(reset) %C(bold green)(%ar)%C(reset)%C(auto)%d%C(reset)%n''          %C(white)%s%C(reset) %C(dim white)- %an%C(reset)'
    lg3-specific = log --graph --abbrev-commit --decorate --format=format:'%C(bold blue)%h%C(reset) - %C(bold cyan)%aD%C(reset) %C(bold green)(%ar)%C(reset) %C(bold cyan)(committed: %cD)%C(reset) %C(auto)%d%C(reset)%n''          %C(white)%s%C(reset)%n''          %C(dim white)- %an <%ae> %C(reset) %C(dim white)(committer: %cn <%ce>)%C(reset)'

The git lgX shortcuts give similar views of the log, but with increasing vertical spacing. git lg1 is the most compact, while git lg3 is the most comfortable to read, as far as vertical whitespace. Same with the -specific commands.

This is one more nice short log command:

    # View abbreviated SHA, description, and history graph of the latest 20 commits
    l = log --pretty=oneline -n 20 --graph --abbrev-commit

Remember to use this with the g alias for super short log:

$ g l
* 4357b28 (HEAD -> source) update mocking aws post
* 063ad78 (gh/source, gh/HEAD) add mocking post
* a5f1adc add init keras cnn post
* fb911ec add keras cnn draft
* 3549d35 add rosalind (euler paths) part 7 draft

$ g lg1
* 4357b28 - (67 minutes ago) update mocking aws post - Charles Reid (HEAD -> source)
* 063ad78 - (2 weeks ago) add mocking post - Charles Reid (gh/source, gh/HEAD)
* a5f1adc - (4 months ago) add init keras cnn post - C Reid
* fb911ec - (5 months ago) add keras cnn draft - C Reid
* 3549d35 - (5 months ago) add rosalind (euler paths) part 7 draft - C Reid
...

Status Utils

The git status command is one of my most frequently used commands, so I made a few shortcuts:

    # View the current working tree status using the short format
    s = status -s
    ss = status

This makes checking the short or long status of a git repo easy:

$ g s
AM pelican/content/git-workflows-1-config.md
AM pelican/content/git-workflows-2-teams.md

$ g ss
On branch source
Your branch is ahead of 'gh/source' by 1 commit.
  (use "git push" to publish your local commits)

Changes to be committed:
  (use "git restore --staged <file>..." to unstage)
    new file:   pelican/content/git-workflows-1-config.md
    new file:   pelican/content/git-workflows-2-teams.md

Changes not staged for commit:
  (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
  (use "git restore <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)
    modified:   pelican/content/git-workflows-1-config.md
    modified:   pelican/content/git-workflows-2-teams.md

Fetching

Fetching is handy to do, since it just fetches changes from a remote and doesn't actually change anything or try to merge anything (unlike a git pull command).

The most useful fetch command (git fetch --all) is aliased to g f with the following bit in the aliases section of the ~/.gitconfig file:

    f = fetch --all

Branch Utils

The only command I might use more than the status command are branch commands, so here are several branch aliases:

    b = branch -v
    bv = branch -v
    bb = branch -v

    ba = branch -a
    bb = branch -v -a

In a similar way, you can get a summary view using g b:

$ g b
  master 4c828cd [behind 84] update with awsome day notes
* source b18adfd add two git workflow posts

$ g b
  master 940ee98 update mocking post
* source b18adfd add two git workflow posts

and a little bit more information with g bb:

$ g bb
  master            940ee98 update mocking post
* source            b18adfd add two git workflow posts
  remotes/gh/HEAD   -> gh/source
  remotes/gh/master 940ee98 update mocking post
  remotes/gh/source b18adfd add two git workflow posts

Branch and Checkout

Sometimes if you are creaing a branch with a long branch name, it can be inconvenient to have to first create the branch with git branch <branch-name> and then check it out with git checkout <branch-name>.

To resolve this you can define a git go alias that creates the branch and then switches to that branch:

    # Switch to a branch, creating it
    # from the current branch if necessary
    go = "!f() { git checkout -b \"$1\" 2> /dev/null || git checkout \"$1\"; }; f"

Careful you don't mistype the branch name.

Remote Utils

Another useful git command is the remote command, so here are a few remote aliases:

    r = remote -v
    rv = remote -v
    ra = remote -v

Commit Utils

Sometimes you have changes that you've staged using git add, but you want to see the changes that you've staged, before you commit them.

Normally you'd have to use the inconvenient git diff --cached <files>, but this can be aliased to cdiff, so that you can use git diff to see unstaged changes and git cdiff to see staged changes.

Even better, you can define the alias g cd to run git cdiff...!

Here's the relevant bit in the aliases section:

    cdiff = diff --cached
    cd = diff --cached

Committing All Changes

    # Commit all changes
    ca = !git add -A && git commit -av

Fixing Commits

Some common operations for repairing commit history before pushing:

    # Amend the currently staged files to the latest commit
    amend = commit --amend --reuse-message=HEAD

    # Oops
    fix = commit --amend --reuse-message=HEAD --edit

Miscellaneous Utils

There are a few other actions that are useful to add to the aliases section of the ~/.gitconfig:

Rebasing shortcuts

    # Interactive rebase with the given number of latest commits
    reb = "!r() { git rebase -i HEAD~$1; }; r"

Diff shortcuts

    # Show the diff between the latest commit and the current state
    d = !"git diff-index --quiet HEAD -- || clear; git --no-pager diff --patch-with-stat"

    # `git di $number` shows the diff between the state `$number` revisions ago and the current state
    di = !"d() { git diff --patch-with-stat HEAD~$1; }; git diff-index --quiet HEAD -- || clear; d"

Pull shortcuts

    p = "!f() { git pull $1 $2; }; f"

Clone shortcuts

    # Clone a repository including all submodules
    c = clone --recursive

Contributor shortcuts

This last one is convenient for getting a summary of contributors:

    # List contributors with number of commits
    contributors = shortlog --summary --numbered

An example for https://github.com/aws/chalice:

$ cd chalice/
$ g contributors
  1053  James Saryerwinnie
   120  John Carlyle
    94  stealthycoin
    42  kyleknap
    35  jcarlyl
    19  Kyle Knapp
    12  Atharva Chauthaiwale

Core section

Because it's the best text editor:

[core]
    editor = vim

I have some other stuff I've collected, many of them from https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles:

    # Use custom `.gitignore` and `.gitattributes`
    excludesfile = ~/.gitignore
    attributesfile = ~/.gitattributes

    # Treat spaces before tabs and all kinds of trailing whitespace as an error
    # [default] trailing-space: looks for spaces at the end of a line
    # [default] space-before-tab: looks for spaces before tabs at the beginning of a line
    whitespace = space-before-tab,-indent-with-non-tab,trailing-space

    # Make `git rebase` safer on macOS
    # More info: <http://www.git-tower.com/blog/make-git-rebase-safe-on-osx/>
    ###trustctime = false

    # Prevent showing files whose names contain non-ASCII symbols as unversioned.
    # http://michael-kuehnel.de/git/2014/11/21/git-mac-osx-and-german-umlaute.html
    precomposeunicode = false

    # Speed up commands involving untracked files such as `git status`.
    # https://git-scm.com/docs/git-update-index#_untracked_cache
    untrackedCache = true

Color section

Make some nice beautiful colors that are easy to understand:

[color]

    # Use colors in Git commands that are capable of colored output when
    # outputting to the terminal. (This is the default setting in Git ≥ 1.8.4.)
    ui = auto

[color "branch"]

    current = yellow reverse
    local = yellow
    remote = green

[color "diff"]

    meta = yellow bold
    frag = magenta bold # line info
    old = red # deletions
    new = green # additions

[color "status"]

    added = yellow
    changed = green
    untracked = cyan

Url section

This makes some Github-related URLs easier and shorter to type:

[url "git@github.com:"]

    insteadOf = "gh:"
    pushInsteadOf = "github:"
    pushInsteadOf = "git://github.com/"

[url "git@gist.github.com:"]

    insteadOf = "gst:"
    pushInsteadOf = "gist:"
    pushInsteadOf = "git://gist.github.com/"

[url "git://gist.github.com/"]

    insteadOf = "gist:"

Now, instead of

$ git clone git@github.com:org-name/repo-name

you can do the much simpler

$ g c gh://org-name/repo-name

Voila! Start integrating these alises into your daily workflow, and you'll find yourself using a lot fewer keystrokes!