Conditional Git Configuration

git has always(?) allowed for additional configuration files to be unconditionally included:

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[include]
    path = path/to/gitconfig

Each individual git repo has always had the ability to maintain its own configuration at .git/config. However, sometimes on our systems we also have certain locations where we store multiple git projects, which may need different configuration from the global, but still common across that location.

Since … well, for the last year or two at least, git has allowed for the conditional inclusion of configuration files.

For example, I contribute to F/OSS projects using one email address, which lives in my global git config . However, for work projects, I want to use my work email everywhere — and accidentally pushing w/my personal email address is just embarrassing. All of my work projects live under a certain directory, so I can tell git that if a given repository’s gitdir lives under ~/work, it should also load an additional configuration file:

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[includeIf "gitdir:~/work/"]
    path = ~/work/gitconfig

…and in there, I can set

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; this is ~/work/gitconfig
[user]
    email = cweyl@work.com

In this way, I do not need to remember to change the email address of any repos I clone under ~/work to my work address. This is especially useful as I not infrequently find myself forking and submitting bugfix PR/MR’s to upstream, and if I do that for $work then I want to be using my work email address.

See also the “Includes” and “Conditional Includes” sections of the git-config manpage.