nyctef | Better living through git aliases

SourceTree is too slow. GitExtensions is fast, but too ugly. GitHub for Windows is pretty, but too simple. git is very powerful, but a massive mess of inconsistent and overly-verbose commands.

(See hg for what a well-designed commandline looks like. But I digress)

The point is, the git commandline is actually reasonably easy to fix using aliases. Once you have a sensible set of aliases, you can be reasonably productive with the git commandline compared to using one of the UIs listed above.

I'm going to take you through some of the aliases I've created so far, but I recommend sticking with the default git commands and only introducing aliases as you see fit. One of the great things about aliases is they can become completely personal to the way you want to work.

Simple commands made shorter:

st = status
ci = commit --verbose
fa = fetch --all
co = checkout
di = diff --word-diff
amend = commit --amend
aa = add -A

and of course

lg = log --graph --abbrev-commit --decorate --date=relative --format=format:'%h%C(reset) - %C(bold green)(%ar)%C(reset) %s%C(reset) %C(bold green)- %an%C(reset)%C(bold yellow)%d%C(reset)'

for a useful log command.

These are fairly explanatory. You can combine these with other options, or make variants of the aliases like so:

cia = commit --verbose -a
cip = commit --verbose -p
dc = diff --cached --word-diff
fap = fetch --all --prune
cob = checkout -b

Remember to fap regularly for a healthy repository ;)

p = pull --ff-only

Git pull is broken. Always fetch changes and merge them separately when it's non-trivial to do so.

fomm = fetch origin master:master

This lets you do a fast-forward on master while a different branch is currently checked out. Useful when you want to integrate master into whatever feature you're working on.

dlast = diff HEAD^ HEAD --word-diff

AKA "did I really just commit what I think I did?" for those moments of forgetfulness

outgoing = !git lg FETCH_HEAD..
incoming = !git fetch && git lg ..FETCH_HEAD
outin = !git fa && git lg --left-right ...FETCH_HEAD

Some commands I really missed from mercurial - letting you know of outgoing and incoming changes on your branch. This can tell you what commits are safe to rebase, as well as warn of any upcoming merge trouble. (Personally I have these abbreviated to out and in).

addw = !git diff -b | git apply --ignore-whitespace --cached

Short for "add-whitespace-insensitive": add all non-whitespace changes to the index. Really useful when Visual Studio decides to flip all the line endings for the sixth time this morning.

puom = !git push -u origin `git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD`

For that first push of a new branch to origin, when git insists you name your branch a second time. Just to be sure.

delete-old-branches = !git branch -D `git branch --merged | grep -v '\*\|master' `

Delete branches that have been merged into the current branch (apart from the current branch and master)

A side note: If you're working on windows, there's a couple of things you'll want in order to make the commandline actually pleasant to use. The first is a decent shell. This used to be Cygwin, but fortunately a lot of git distributions are now shipping with Git Bash, which is a decent bash shell without all the hassle. The second is a decent console - personally, I use ConEmu, but there are a bunch of console alternatives. Just don't use the default Windows console - it hasn't changed a bit in something like twenty years, and it really shows.