How to Set Up Git Aliases

Git aliases provide you with the freedom to choose which command to enter for a specific Git operation. This can be helpful for typing fewer characters when executing frequently used commands, creating alternative versions of commands that you tend to mistype, or simplifying lengthy and complex operations.

Setting up a Git alias is a straightforward process, and we recommend creating new aliases regularly as you become familiar with new commands that you find yourself using frequently.

Let's start with a very basic example. You probably type git status often. Wouldn't it be great if you could simply type git st?

To achieve this, all you would need to do is type the following:

$ git config --global alias.st status

Done! You've just created your first alias!

If you now run git config --global --edit, you should see a new entry added at the end of the file. You can, of course, add more aliases by simply editing this configuration file instead.

[alias]
  st = status

At any point you can type git help <alias> to learn more about your alias:

$ git help st
'st' is aliased to 'status'

Finally, you can also type git config --get-regexp alias to view a list of all the aliases you have created.

Useful Aliases Worth Setting Up

We recommend you start by creating aliases for the most popular Git commands. Here are some suggestions:

[alias]
  a = add
  b = branch
  cm = commit -m
  cl = clone
  co = checkout
  pu = push
  pl = pull
  st = status

You can also take a moment to create short aliases for long commands, such as Force Push with Lease or Amend, or come up with aliases for more specific commands that you think should be set as the default behavior in Git, like the latest command below.

[alias] 
  pf = push --force-with-lease
  amend = commit --amend --no-edit
  latest = log -5 --oneline

Shell Aliases

You can even configure Git aliases to run external commands, instead of a Git subcommand. You just need to add a "!" before the command, like in the following example:

[alias]
  hey = "!echo hey"

This can be useful for chaining different Git commands (using &&) or for adding parameters (using $1, $2, etc.).