Config and aliases

git config holds git's settings. You've set a few already: your name and email, pull.rebase and core.hooksPath. This Lesson adds aliases, short names for the commands you type most, a way to see every setting at once, and a way to remove one.

Aliases

An alias is a setting whose name starts with alias.. Its value is the command it stands for, without git in front:

$ git config --global alias.st status
$ git st
On branch main
nothing to commit, working tree clean

Now git st runs git status. With --global, the alias works in every repository on this computer.

An alias can hold flags too: put the value in quotes when it has spaces in it. Anything you type after the alias goes on the end of it:

$ git config --global alias.new "switch -c"
$ git new contact
Switched to a new branch 'contact'

git new contact runs git switch -c contact. Read an alias like any other setting to see what it stands for:

$ git config alias.new
switch -c

To change an alias, set it again. Some aliases many people make:

Alias	Stands for
git st	git status
git new <branch>	git switch -c <branch>
git unstage <file>	git restore --staged <file>
git graph	git log --oneline --graph --all

git's own commands always win. An alias named log or commit is ignored, so an alias can't change what a git command does.

Aliases for one repository

Leave out --global, and an alias, like any setting, is for the repository you're in. A repository can even have its own alias with the same name as a global one:

$ git config --global alias.undo "reset --soft HEAD~1"
$ git config alias.undo "reset --hard HEAD~1"

So what does git undo do here?

Every setting at once: git config --list

$ git config --list
user.name=You
user.email=you@example.com
alias.st=status
alias.new=switch -c
alias.undo=reset --soft HEAD~1
core.repositoryformatversion=0
core.filemode=true
core.bare=false
core.logallrefupdates=true
alias.undo=reset --hard HEAD~1

Each line is one setting, name=value. The global settings come first, then this repository's own. The core. lines are settings git init wrote when it made the repository; you can leave them alone. Add --global to list only the global settings.

When a name is listed twice, the later line wins, so in this repository, its own setting wins over the global one. git config alias.undo prints the value that counts here:

$ git config alias.undo
reset --hard HEAD~1

In every other repository, git undo takes back the last commit and keeps its changes staged. In this one, it throws them away. Before you trust an alias in a repository, check what it does there.

The same goes for every setting: a user.email, pull.rebase or core.hooksPath set in a repository wins there over the global one. When git behaves differently in one repository, git config --list is the first place to look.

Removing a setting: git config --unset

To change a setting, you set it again. To remove one, use --unset. Without --global, it removes only this repository's own setting, so here the global one counts again:

$ git config --unset alias.undo
$ git config alias.undo
reset --soft HEAD~1

With --global, it removes a global setting instead: git config --global --unset alias.st removes your global alias st.

On your own computer

Global settings live in a file in your home folder, .gitconfig, and a repository's in .git/config. git config --list --show-origin says which file each line comes from. An alias that starts with !, like !echo hello, runs a shell command instead of a git command; this Terminal doesn't run those.

Command	What it does
git config --global alias.<name> "<command>"	Makes git <name> run git <command>, in every repository.
git config alias.<name> "<command>"	The same, in this repository only. Here, it wins over a global alias with that name.
git config alias.<name>	Prints what the alias stands for here.
git config --list	Lists every setting: the global ones first, then this repository's.
git config --global --list	Lists only the global settings.
git config --unset <name>	Removes this repository's own setting.
git config --global --unset <name>	Removes the global setting.