Load git config conditionally⌗

If you have ever felt annoyed by having to run git config command over and over again, git does provide you with a way to set the config globally, simply by dropping in the command --global flag. For example:

git config --global user.email "my@email.com"

This will apply the config globally in your environment, which is nice if you a single setup.

However, there might be times when you don’t want to use the same config for different repository or workspace. For example, you have a directory which contains all your work related repositories, where your work email and username are used, and also, you have a personal directory where you store all your personal projects in it and you want to use your personal email and username for it. Here is how you can do it:

• In your work directory, create a .gitconfig file, where you put your work email and username in it

[user]
  email = great@company.com
  name = best_employee

• In your personal projects’ directory, also create a .gitconfig file, and add your personal email and username

[user]
  email = my@email.com
  name = my_username

Now, in order to tell git to respect your settings, in your $HOME directory, create a .gitconfig file if you don’t have one yet, or just open the existing one that you have, and put this to it

[includeIf "gitdir:~/Work/"]
  path = ~/Work/.gitconfig
[includeIf "gitdir:~/Projects/"]
  path = ~/Projects/.gitconfig

This will tel git that whenever your in ~/Work/ or any of its sub-directories, the work config will be applied. The same goes for the personal Projects directory.

Hope you’ll find this helpful 😄