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0. Setting up git

If git is not installed, it can be installed via your operating system's package manager (e.g. Homebrew on MacOS).

We recommend also installing hub, a command-line tool which adds additional git functionality for working with Github. (It's also available in Homebrew on MacOS.) The normal installation of hub aliases the git command to call hub, because hub will automatically delegate any commands it doesn't recognize directly to git. To do that, add a line like the following to your shell's initialization file (~/.bash_profile, or ~/.zprofile for zsh):

alias git='hub'

Aliases

Many developers like to make aliases for common git commands to save time and typing. These can come in two forms: git aliases and shell aliases for git commands.

Git Aliases

Below are commands to setup the a standard git alias.

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

For example, with these aliases installed, git st is an alias for git status.

Git aliases can also be used to encapsulate commonly used commands and argument combinations.

git config --global alias.aa 'add --all'
git config --global alias.d 'diff --staged'
git config --global alias.pf 'push --force-with-lease'
git config --global alias.l1 'log --graph --decorate --oneline'
git config --global alias.l2 'log --pretty=format:"%C(yellow)%h%Cblue%d%Creset %s %C(white) %an, %ar%Creset" --graph'

Aliases can also be set by editing your ~/.gitconfig file in the [alias] section. See the git-config(1) man page for more information.

Shell Aliases

The most common git command to be aliased is git status. Many developers will alias that command to 1 or 2 characters by adding one of the following to their .bash_profile (or .zprofile for zsh).

alias gs="git status"
# or
alias s="git status"
# or for shorter terminal output
alias gs="git status -sb"

Git Status in Command Prompt

Another useful part of git config is to have the branch names and status of the working directory expressed in your command prompt when in a git repo. For bash, check out bash-git-prompt. Zsh ships with git completion and prompt support; for more information, see this appendix in the git book.

Two-factor Authentication

Some code that we have access to is confidential. It's not a bad idea to enable two-factor authentication (2FA) for your git service accounts like Github and Gitlab.

Note: 2FA based on SMS messages is not secure. For better security, use an app on your mobile phone like Google Authenticator.