We need to configure Git to contain your information. Whenever code changes, Git tracks who made the change. To ensure you get proper credit (or more likely, blame) for all the code you write, you need to set your name and email.

Git comes with a configuration both at the global and the repo (project) level. Most of the time, you’ll just use the global config.

Assignment#

Let’s set your identity. Check if your user.name and user.email are already set:

git config --get user.name
git config --get user.email

If they aren’t, set them. I recommend using your GitHub username and email.

git config --add --global user.name "github_username_here"
git config --add --global user.email "email@example.com"

Finally, let’s set a default branch (we’ll talk more about configs and branches later) so that we’re all on the same page. Run:

git config --global init.defaultBranch master

We’re using master for now because it is Git’s default, but later we’ll change it to main, which is GitHub’s default. Just bear with us for a second.

Make Sure It Worked#

Your ~/.gitconfig file is the file that stores your global Git configuration. View it:

cat ~/.gitconfig

Git Config#

Git stores author information so that when you’re making a commit it can track who made the change. Here’s how you might update your global Git configuration (don’t do this yet):

git config --add --global user.name "alperen"
git config --add --global user.email "alperen@cartcurt.com"

Let’s take the command apart:

  • git config: The command to interact with your Git configuration.
  • --add: Flag stating you want to add a configuration.
  • --global: Flag stating you want this configuration to be stored globally in your ~/.gitconfig. The opposite is “local”, which stores the configuration in the current repository only.
  • user: The section.
  • name: The key within the section.
  • "alperen": The value you want to set for the key.
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