There are a lot of different ways to use Git. The original command-line tools, and there are many graphical user interfaces, we will be using Git on the command line, the command line is the only place you can run all Git commands, most of the GUIs implement only a partial subset of Git functionality for simplicity.

If you know how to run the command-line version, you can probably also figure out how to run the GUI version, while the opposite is not necessarily true.

I expect you know how to open Terminal or Command Prompt or PowerShell. If you don’t know what we’re talking about here, you may need to stop and research that quickly…

First-Time Git Setup

After you install Git on your system, you’ll want to do a few things to customize your Git environment. You should have to do these things only once on any given computer they’ll stick around between upgrades.

`git config`

Git comes with a tool called git config that lets you get and set configuration variables that control all aspects of how Git looks and operates. These variables can be stored in three different places:

1. System level (all users)

[path]/etc/gitconfig file: Contains values applied to every user on the system and all their repositories. If you pass the option --system, it reads and writes from this file specifically. Because this is a system configuration file, you would need administrative or superuser privilege to make changes to it.

sudo git config --system ...

2. Global level (you)

~/.gitconfig or ~/.config/git/config file: Values specific personally to you, the user. You can make Git read and write to this file specifically by passing the --global option, and this affects all of the repositories you work with on your system.

git config --global ...

3. Local level (one project)

config file in the Git directory (.git/config) of whatever repository you’re currently using: Specific to that single repository. You can force Git to read from and write to this file with the --local option, but that is in fact the default. Unsurprisingly, you need to be located somewhere in a Git repository for this option to work properly.

git config --local ...

Each level overrides values in the previous level, so values in .git/config trump those in [path]/etc/gitconfig

On Windows systems, Git looks for the .gitconfig file in the $HOME directory (C:\Users\$USER for most people). It also still looks for [path]/etc/gitconfig, although it’s relative to the MSys root, which is wherever you decide to install Git on your Windows system when you run the installer. If you are using version 2.x or later of Git for Windows, there is also a system-level config file at C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Git\config on Windows XP, and in C:\ProgramData\Git\config on Windows Vista and newer. This config file can only be changed by git config -f <file> as an admin.

You can view all of your settings and where they are coming from using:

git config --list --show-origin

Your Identity

The first thing you should do when you install Git is to set your user name and email address. This is important because every Git commit uses this information, and it’s immutably baked into the commits you start creating:

git config --global user.name "Sakujo"
git config --global user.email sakujo@sakujo.org

Again, you need to do this only once if you pass the --global option, because then Git will always use that information for your user on that system. If you want to override this with a different name or email address for specific projects, you can run the command without the --global option when you’re in that project.

Git credential cache

git config --global credential.helper cache

the default timeout is 15 minutes. But you can customize it like this:

90 days = 90 × 24 × 60 × 60 = 7,776,000 seconds

git config --global credential.helper "cache --timeout=7776000"

Your Editor

Now that your identity is set up, you can configure the default text editor that will be used when Git needs you to type in a message. If not configured, Git uses your system’s default editor.

If you want to use a different text editor, such as Emacs, you can do the following:

git config --global core.editor emacs

But there’s a small important detail. On many systems, especially Linux/macOS, Git often works better with:

git config --global core.editor "vim"

Both usually work, but quoting is safer.

On a Windows system, if you want to use a different text editor, you must specify the full path to its executable file. This can be different depending on how your editor is packaged.

In the case of Notepad++, a popular programming editor, you are likely to want to use the 32-bit version, since at the time of writing the 64-bit version doesn’t support all plug-ins. If you are on a 32-bit Windows system, or you have a 64-bit editor on a 64-bit system, you’ll type something like this:

git config --global core.editor "'C:/Program Files/Notepad++/notepad++.exe' -multiInst -notabbar -nosession -noPlugin"

Note:

Vim, Emacs and Notepad++ are popular text editors often used by developers on Unix-based systems like Linux and macOS or a Windows system. If you are using another editor, or a 32-bit version, please find specific instructions for how to set up your favorite editor with Git in git config core.editor commands.

Warning:

You may find, if you don’t setup your editor like this, you get into a really confusing state when Git attempts to launch it. An example on a Windows system may include a prematurely terminated Git operation during a Git initiated edit.

Checking Your Settings

If you want to check your configuration settings, you can use the git config --list command to list all the settings Git can find at that point:

git config --list

user.name=John Doe
user.email=johndoe@example.com
color.status=auto
color.branch=auto
color.interactive=auto
color.diff=auto
...

You can also check what Git thinks a specific key’s value is by typing git config :

git config user.name
John Doe

Since Git might read the same configuration variable value from more than one file, it’s possible that you have an unexpected value for one of these values and you don’t know why. In cases like that, you can query Git as to the origin for that value, and it will tell you which configuration file had the final say in setting that value:

git config --show-origin rerere.autoUpdate
file:/home/johndoe/.gitconfig	false

OPTIONS

`-v` / `--version`

Prints the Git suite version.

`-h` / `--help`

Prints the synopsis and a list of the most commonly used commands. If the option --all or -a is given then all available commands are printed. If a Git command is named this option will bring up the manual page for that command.

`-C`

Run as if git was started in <path> instead of the current working directory. When multiple -C options are given, each subsequent non-absolute -C <path> is interpreted relative to the preceding -C <path>. If is present but empty -C "" then the current working directory is left unchanged.

`-c` =

This lets you set a Git configuration value just for that one command, without modifying your global or local config files.

git -c user.name="Temp User" commit

This uses Temp User as the author name only for this commit.

No = means boolean true

git -c core.editor ...

Empty value means boolean false

git -c core.editor= ...