Documentation/config.txt

   1 CONFIGURATION FILE
   2 ------------------
   3
   4 The git configuration file contains a number of variables that affect
   5 the git command's behavior. They can be used by both the git plumbing
   6 and the porcelains. The variables are divided into sections, where
   7 in the fully qualified variable name the variable itself is the last
   8 dot-separated segment and the section name is everything before the last
   9 dot. The variable names are case-insensitive and only alphanumeric
  10 characters are allowed. Some variables may appear multiple times.
  11
  12 The syntax is fairly flexible and permissive; whitespaces are mostly
  13 ignored. The '#' and ';' characters begin comments to the end of line,
  14 blank lines are ignored, lines containing strings enclosed in square
  15 brackets start sections and all the other lines are recognized
  16 as setting variables, in the form 'name = value'. If there is no equal
  17 sign on the line, the entire line is taken as 'name' and the variable
  18 is recognized as boolean "true". String values may be entirely or partially
  19 enclosed in double quotes; some variables may require special value format.
  20
  21 Example
  22 ~~~~~~~
  23
  24         # Core variables
  25         [core]
  26                 ; Don't trust file modes
  27                 filemode = false
  28
  29         # Our diff algorithm
  30         [diff]
  31                 external = "/usr/local/bin/gnu-diff -u"
  32                 renames = true
  33
  34 Variables
  35 ~~~~~~~~~
  36
  37 Note that this list is non-comprehensive and not necessarily complete.
  38 For command-specific variables, you will find a more detailed description
  39 in the appropriate manual page. You will find a description of non-core
  40 porcelain configuration variables in the respective porcelain documentation.
  41
  42 core.fileMode::
  43         If false, the executable bit differences between the index and
  44         the working copy are ignored; useful on broken filesystems like FAT.
  45         See gitlink:git-update-index[1]. True by default.
  46
  47 core.gitProxy::
  48         A "proxy command" to execute (as 'command host port') instead
  49         of establishing direct connection to the remote server when
  50         using the git protocol for fetching. If the variable value is
  51         in the "COMMAND for DOMAIN" format, the command is applied only
  52         on hostnames ending with the specified domain string. This variable
  53         may be set multiple times and is matched in the given order;
  54         the first match wins.
  55 +
  56 Can be overridden by the 'GIT_PROXY_COMMAND' environment variable
  57 (which always applies universally, without the special "for"
  58 handling).
  59
  60 core.ignoreStat::
  61         The working copy files are assumed to stay unchanged until you
  62         mark them otherwise manually - Git will not detect the file changes
  63         by lstat() calls. This is useful on systems where those are very
  64         slow, such as Microsoft Windows.  See gitlink:git-update-index[1].
  65         False by default.
  66
  67 core.preferSymlinkRefs::
  68         Instead of the default "symref" format for HEAD
  69         and other symbolic reference files, use symbolic links.
  70         This is sometimes needed to work with old scripts that
  71         expect HEAD to be a symbolic link.
  72
  73 core.logAllRefUpdates::
  74         If true, `git-update-ref` will append a line to
  75         "$GIT_DIR/logs/<ref>" listing the new SHA1 and the date/time
  76         of the update.  If the file does not exist it will be
  77         created automatically.  This information can be used to
  78         determine what commit was the tip of a branch "2 days ago".
  79         This value is false by default (no logging).
  80
  81 core.repositoryFormatVersion::
  82         Internal variable identifying the repository format and layout
  83         version.
  84
  85 core.sharedRepository::
  86         If true, the repository is made shareable between several users
  87         in a group (making sure all the files and objects are group-writable).
  88         See gitlink:git-init-db[1]. False by default.
  89
  90 core.warnAmbiguousRefs::
  91         If true, git will warn you if the ref name you passed it is ambiguous
  92         and might match multiple refs in the .git/refs/ tree. True by default.
  93
  94 core.compression::
  95         An integer -1..9, indicating the compression level for objects that
  96         are not in a pack file. -1 is the zlib and git default. 0 means no
  97         compression, and 1..9 are various speed/size tradeoffs, 9 being
  98         slowest.
  99
 100 core.legacyheaders::
 101         A boolean which enables the legacy object header format in case
 102         you want to interoperate with old clients accessing the object
 103         database directly (where the "http://" and "rsync://" protocols
 104         count as direct access).
 105
 106 alias.*::
 107         Command aliases for the gitlink:git[1] command wrapper - e.g.
 108         after defining "alias.last = cat-file commit HEAD", the invocation
 109         "git last" is equivalent to "git cat-file commit HEAD". To avoid
 110         confusion and troubles with script usage, aliases that
 111         hide existing git commands are ignored. Arguments are split by
 112         spaces, the usual shell quoting and escaping is supported.
 113         quote pair and a backslash can be used to quote them.
 114
 115 apply.whitespace::
 116         Tells `git-apply` how to handle whitespaces, in the same way
 117         as the '--whitespace' option. See gitlink:git-apply[1].
 118
 119 diff.color::
 120         When true (or `always`), always use colors in patch.
 121         When false (or `never`), never.  When set to `auto`, use
 122         colors only when the output is to the terminal.
 123
 124 diff.color.<slot>::
 125         Use customized color for diff colorization.  `<slot>`
 126         specifies which part of the patch to use the specified
 127         color, and is one of `plain` (context text), `meta`
 128         (metainformation), `frag` (hunk header), `old` (removed
 129         lines), or `new` (added lines).  The value for these
 130         configuration variables can be one of: `normal`, `bold`,
 131         `dim`, `ul`, `blink`, `reverse`, `reset`, `black`,
 132         `red`, `green`, `yellow`, `blue`, `magenta`, `cyan`, or
 133         `white`.
 134
 135 diff.renameLimit::
 136         The number of files to consider when performing the copy/rename
 137         detection; equivalent to the git diff option '-l'.
 138
 139 diff.renames::
 140         Tells git to detect renames.  If set to any boolean value, it
 141         will enable basic rename detection.  If set to "copies" or
 142         "copy", it will detect copies, as well.
 143
 144 format.headers::
 145         Additional email headers to include in a patch to be submitted
 146         by mail.  See gitlink:git-format-patch[1].
 147
 148 gitcvs.enabled::
 149         Whether the cvs pserver interface is enabled for this repository.
 150         See gitlink:git-cvsserver[1].
 151
 152 gitcvs.logfile::
 153         Path to a log file where the cvs pserver interface well... logs
 154         various stuff. See gitlink:git-cvsserver[1].
 155
 156 http.sslVerify::
 157         Whether to verify the SSL certificate when fetching or pushing
 158         over HTTPS. Can be overridden by the 'GIT_SSL_NO_VERIFY' environment
 159         variable.
 160
 161 http.sslCert::
 162         File containing the SSL certificate when fetching or pushing
 163         over HTTPS. Can be overridden by the 'GIT_SSL_CERT' environment
 164         variable.
 165
 166 http.sslKey::
 167         File containing the SSL private key when fetching or pushing
 168         over HTTPS. Can be overridden by the 'GIT_SSL_KEY' environment
 169         variable.
 170
 171 http.sslCAInfo::
 172         File containing the certificates to verify the peer with when
 173         fetching or pushing over HTTPS. Can be overridden by the
 174         'GIT_SSL_CAINFO' environment variable.
 175
 176 http.sslCAPath::
 177         Path containing files with the CA certificates to verify the peer
 178         with when fetching or pushing over HTTPS. Can be overridden
 179         by the 'GIT_SSL_CAPATH' environment variable.
 180
 181 http.maxRequests::
 182         How many HTTP requests to launch in parallel. Can be overridden
 183         by the 'GIT_HTTP_MAX_REQUESTS' environment variable. Default is 5.
 184
 185 http.lowSpeedLimit, http.lowSpeedTime::
 186         If the HTTP transfer speed is less than 'http.lowSpeedLimit'
 187         for longer than 'http.lowSpeedTime' seconds, the transfer is aborted.
 188         Can be overridden by the 'GIT_HTTP_LOW_SPEED_LIMIT' and
 189         'GIT_HTTP_LOW_SPEED_TIME' environment variables.
 190
 191 i18n.commitEncoding::
 192         Character encoding the commit messages are stored in; git itself
 193         does not care per se, but this information is necessary e.g. when
 194         importing commits from emails or in the gitk graphical history
 195         browser (and possibly at other places in the future or in other
 196         porcelains). See e.g. gitlink:git-mailinfo[1]. Defaults to 'utf-8'.
 197
 198 merge.summary::
 199         Whether to include summaries of merged commits in newly created
 200         merge commit messages. False by default.
 201
 202 pack.window::
 203         The size of the window used by gitlink:git-pack-objects[1] when no
 204         window size is given on the command line. Defaults to 10.
 205
 206 pull.octopus::
 207         The default merge strategy to use when pulling multiple branches
 208         at once.
 209
 210 pull.twohead::
 211         The default merge strategy to use when pulling a single branch.
 212
 213 show.difftree::
 214         The default gitlink:git-diff-tree[1] arguments to be used
 215         for gitlink:git-show[1].
 216
 217 showbranch.default::
 218         The default set of branches for gitlink:git-show-branch[1].
 219         See gitlink:git-show-branch[1].
 220
 221 tar.umask::
 222         By default, git-link:git-tar-tree[1] sets file and directories modes
 223         to 0666 or 0777. While this is both useful and acceptable for projects
 224         such as the Linux Kernel, it might be excessive for other projects.
 225         With this variable, it becomes possible to tell
 226         git-link:git-tar-tree[1] to apply a specific umask to the modes above.
 227         The special value "user" indicates that the user's current umask will
 228         be used. This should be enough for most projects, as it will lead to
 229         the same permissions as git-link:git-checkout[1] would use. The default
 230         value remains 0, which means world read-write.
 231
 232 user.email::
 233         Your email address to be recorded in any newly created commits.
 234         Can be overridden by the 'GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL' and 'GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL'
 235         environment variables.  See gitlink:git-commit-tree[1].
 236
 237 user.name::
 238         Your full name to be recorded in any newly created commits.
 239         Can be overridden by the 'GIT_AUTHOR_NAME' and 'GIT_COMMITTER_NAME'
 240         environment variables.  See gitlink:git-commit-tree[1].
 241
 242 whatchanged.difftree::
 243         The default gitlink:git-diff-tree[1] arguments to be used
 244         for gitlink:git-whatchanged[1].
 245
 246 imap::
 247         The configuration variables in the 'imap' section are described
 248         in gitlink:git-imap-send[1].