How to colorize git-status output?

Question

I want to colorize git-status output so that:

untracked files = magenta
new files = green
modified files = blue
deleted files = red

I am i

Answer 1

From git config doc:

color.status.<slot>

Use customized color for status colorization. <slot> is one of:

• header (the header text of the status message),
• added or updated (files which are added but not committed),
• changed (files which are changed but not added in the index),
• untracked (files which are not tracked by git),
• branch (the current branch),
• nobranch (the color the no branch warning is shown in, defaulting to red),
• localBranch or remoteBranch (the local and remote branch names, respectively, when branch and tracking information is displayed in the status short-format),
• unmerged (files which have unmerged changes).

The values of these variables may be specified as in color.branch.<slot>.

So this will work:

git config color.status.changed blue
git config color.status.untracked magenta

However:

new files = green
deleted files = red

Isn't possible: you need to pick one color:

• if they are added to the index, they will pick the color for color.status.added.
• if they aren't added to the index, they will pick the color or color.status.modified.

---

Of course, as commented by elboletaire:

Remember to enable coloring output if it has not been enabled previously:

git config --global color.ui true

---

Shaun Luttin adds:

The command can also take multiple parameters in quotes. This includes two colors (foreground background) from this list:

normal, black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan and white;

and it also includes one attribute (style) from this list:

bold, dim, ul, blink and reverse.

So this will work:

git config color.status.changed "blue normal bold"
git config color.status.header "white normal dim"

---

Note: with git 2.9.1 (July 2016), The output coloring scheme learned two new attributes, italic and strike, in addition to existing bold, reverse, etc.

See commit 9dc3515, commit 54590a0, commit 5621068, commit df8e472, commit ae989a6, commit adb3356, commit 0111681 (23 Jun 2016) by Jeff King (peff).
^{(Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit 3c5de5c, 11 Jul 2016)}

It also allow "no-" for negating attributes

Using "no-bold" rather than "nobold" is easier to read and more natural to type (to me, anyway, even though I was the person who introduced "nobold" in the first place). It's easy to allow both.