This is a summary of useful git config commands. Git settings exist in a hierachy, for Windows the default locations are:

• System wide - %programfiles%\Git\etc\gitconfig
• Global - %userprofile%.gitconfig
• Local to the repository - .git/config

Common global properties

These ones are recommended to be set after Git has been installed:

• git config --global user.name "your name"
• git config --global user.email [email protected]

Overriding properties

Settings lower in the hierachy override, so for example, if you need to use a different user name and email for a particular repository:

• git config user.name "your name"
• git config user.email [email protected]

Run this in the git repository you wish to modify. Local is implied if another scope such as --global is not specified.

Listing settings

• List global settings: git config --global --list
• List only local settings: git config --local --list
• Show where settings apply from: git config --list --show-origin

Useful settings

• git config --global init.defaultbranch main will set the default branch to any new repository to ‘main’
• git config --global user.signingkey <your key> allows you to set your GPG key for signing commits
• git config --global credential.msauthflow system will set the git credential manager to use your system default browser (otherwise it can use IE)

Removing settings

This is done using --unset or --unset-all if you want to remove all settings with a particular property, e.g.:

• git config --global --unset user.signingkey

An example of removing a local config setting with a specific value (user name: “Mr X”):

• git config --unset user.name "Mr X"

Git Credential Manager

If you’re using Git for Windows, you automatically have git credential manager installed so you don’t have to continuously authenticate.

This adds a new global setting credential.helper=manager