Git on blog.bdw.li https://blog.bdw.li/tags/git/ Recent content in Git on blog.bdw.li en hello@bdw.li (jwb) hello@bdw.li (jwb) Fri, 13 Feb 2026 21:43:56 +0100 gitconfig and includeIf Statements https://blog.bdw.li/gitconfig-and-includeif-statements/?ref=rss Tue, 13 Feb 2024 23:15:20 +0100hello@bdw.li (jwb) https://blog.bdw.li/gitconfig-and-includeif-statements/?ref=rss If/else branches in a configuration file feel like a niche feature, but for mixed work environments it’s perfect. Over the day I was using different machines to work on some git files. One machine was running Ubuntu, the other one Windows. Since I started using GPG keys to sign my commits a few weeks ago, I wondered how I could streamline my config files. A dotfile repository seemed to be the answer.

While I did some research on that, I stumbled upon the nifty feature of IncludeIf in .gitconfig1. I could use this to split up the configuration files to match the different Operating Systems.

~
├───.gitconfig
├───.gitconfig-linux
├───.gitconfig-windows
├───.gitconfig-github
└───.gitconfig-gitlab

VSCodium on Windows seems to require the gitdir/i parameter to work2, Github3.

.gitconfig

[includeIf "gitdir/i:c:/"]
path = ~/.gitconfig-windows
	
[includeIf "gitdir:/home"]
path = ~/.gitconfig-linux

[includeIf "gitdir:~/Git/"]
path = ~/.gitconfig-github

[includeIf "gitdir:~/Gitlab/"]
path = ~/.gitconfig-gitlab

The tilde “~” is nowadays an alias for the HOME variable on all major systems. On Windows it will show C:\Users\$username, on Linux it will be /home/$username. (And on macOS probably something like /Users/$username, but I didn’t check.)

First, includeIf checks if the path of the git directory we are currently working in, starts with a C:\. If so, we are apparently on a Windows machine and include the configuration from C:\Users\$username\.gitconfig-windows.

The next check is for Linux systems. If the path starts with /home we include the linux config from /home/$username/.gitconfig-linux.

Once these are finished, we check if the path has /Git/ or /Gitlab/ in it. This is a personal preference of mine. I like to sort the repositories I work on into folders based on the provider.

Git = Github
Gitlab = Gitlab

.gitconfig-linux // .gitconfig-windows

These files only show the path to the gpg binary, to assist in signing the commits.

# .gitconfig-linux
[gpg]
program = /usr/bin/gpg2

# .gitconfig-windows
[gpg]
program = c:/Program Files (x86)/GnuPG/bin/gpg.exe

.gitconfig-github // .gitconfig-gitlab

Again, the files are pretty similar and will share the same configuration items. The content, however, is different.

# .gitconfig-github
[user]
email = 19500486-josephbadow@users.noreply.gitlab.com
name = josephbadow
signingkey = 962215312718E4709B8F48240A05C906BDF59822 

[commit]
gpgsign = true

# .gitconfig-gitlab
[user]
email = 19500486-josephbadow@users.noreply.gitlab.com
name = josephbadow
signingkey = 962215312718E4709B8F48240A05C906BDF59822 

[commit]
gpgsign = true

You can actually use git config --show-origin --get gpg.program to let git show you the value of the parameter (gpg.program in this case) and the config file where it was found.

All this allows me to use one set of configuration files on all my machines. My commits automagically use the proper gpg binary and git credentials, as long as I stay true to my folder structure with Git for Github and Gitlab for, well, Gitlab.

I like it!

  1. https://git-scm.com/docs/git-config ↩︎

  2. https://stackoverflow.com/a/55107009/22461849 ↩︎

  3. https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/62921#issuecomment-437693020 ↩︎

]]> Git submodules and newly cloned repositories https://blog.bdw.li/git-submodules-and-newly-cloned-repositories/?ref=rss Wed, 01 Nov 2023 08:30:25 +0100hello@bdw.li (jwb) https://blog.bdw.li/git-submodules-and-newly-cloned-repositories/?ref=rss A quick reminder for myself As a reminder for my future self: If one clones a repository to a new location, the submodules are not cloned automatically. They need to be initialized and updated once, in order to show the proper content.

git submodule init
git submodule update

If the theme is a submodule and the customizations are in a different branch, one needs to switch to that particular branch as well. D’oh!

git checkout live
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