Is it possible to have different Git configuration for different projects?

Question

.gitconfig is usually stored in the user.home directory.

I use a different identity to work on projects for Company A and something else fo

Answer 1

I had an error when trying to git stash my local changes. The error from git said "Please tell me who you are" and then told me to "Run git config --global user.email "you@example.com and git config --global user.name "Your name" to set your account's default identity." However, you must Omit --global to set the identity only in your current repository.

Answer 2

I'm in the same boat. I wrote a little bash script to manage them. https://github.com/thejeffreystone/setgit

#!/bin/bash

# setgit
#
# Script to manage multiple global gitconfigs
# 
# To save your current .gitconfig to .gitconfig-this just run:
# setgit -s this
#
# To load .gitconfig-this to .gitconfig it run:
# setgit -f this
# 
# 
# 
# Author: Jeffrey Stone <thejeffreystone@gmail.com>

usage(){
  echo "$(basename $0) [-h] [-f name]" 
  echo ""
  echo "where:"
  echo " -h  Show Help Text"
  echo " -f  Load the .gitconfig file based on option passed"
  echo ""
  exit 1  
}

if [ $# -lt 1 ]
then
  usage
  exit
fi

while getopts ':hf:' option; do
  case "$option" in
      h) usage
         exit
         ;;
      f) echo "Loading .gitconfig from .gitconfig-$OPTARG"
         cat ~/.gitconfig-$OPTARG > ~/.gitconfig
         ;;
      *) printf "illegal option: '%s'\n" "$OPTARG" >&2
         echo "$usage" >&2
         exit 1
         ;;
    esac
done

Answer 3

The .git/config file in a particular clone of a repository is local to that clone. Any settings placed there will only affect actions for that particular project.

(By default, git config modifies .git/config, not ~/.gitconfig - only with --global does it modify the latter.)

Answer 4

I am doing this for my email in the following way:

git config --global alias.hobbyprofile 'config user.email "me@example.com"'

Then when I clone a new work project, I have only to run git hobbyprofile and it will be configured to use that email.

Answer 5

You can customize a project's Git config by changing the repository specific configuration file (i.e. /path/to/repo/.git/config). BTW, git config writes to this file by default:

cd /path/to/repo
git config user.name 'John Doe'  # sets user.name locally for the repo

I prefer to create separate profiles for different projects (e.g. in ~/.gitconfig.d/) and then include them in the repository's config file:

cd /path/to/repo
git config include.path '~/.gitconfig.d/myproject.conf'

This works well if you need to use the same set of options in multiple repos that belong to a single project. You can also set up shell aliases or a custom Git command to manipulate the profiles.

Answer 6

There are 3 levels of git config; project, global and system.

• project: Project configs are only available for the current project and stored in .git/config in the project's directory.
• global: Global configs are available for all projects for the current user and stored in ~/.gitconfig.
• system: System configs are available for all the users/projects and stored in /etc/gitconfig.

Create a project specific config, you have to execute this under the project's directory:

$ git config user.name "John Doe" 

Create a global config:

$ git config --global user.name "John Doe"

Create a system config:

$ git config --system user.name "John Doe" 

And as you may guess, project overrides global and global overrides system.

Note: Project configs are local to just one particular copy/clone of this particular repo, and need to be reapplied if the repo is recloned clean from the remote. It changes a local file that is not sent to the remote with a commit/push.