Git Aliases

Git aliases are a handy feature of Git that allows you to create shortcuts for commonly used commands. Once you start using them, you will never want to go back to typing the full commands again.

Create Aliases

The command to create a Git alias is as follows:

git config --global alias.<shortcut> <command>

Let’s create aliases for the most commonly used Git commands:

git config --global alias.ci "commit"
git config --global alias.co "checkout"
git config --global alias.st "status"
git config --global alias.br "branch"
git config --global alias.log "log --oneline --graph --decorate --all"

Use Aliases

Now instead of typing the full commands, you can use the aliases in your daily work:

Git Commit

git ci -m "Commit message"

Git Checkout

git co <branch-name>

Git Status

git st

Git Branch

git br

Git Log

git log

Global Alias

We just set up shortcuts for the most commonly used Git commands. But we can also set up an alias for the Git itself. This isn’t a Git feature, rather it is a shell feature.

PowerShell

Open your profile configuration file:

notepad $PROFILE

Then add the following line:

New-Alias -Name g -Value "git"

Save the file and restart your terminal.

Bash / Zsh

Open your profile configuration file:

nano ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc

Then add the following line:

alias g="git"

Save the file and restart your terminal.

Use Global Alias

Now you can use the g command followed by a Git command alias.

g ci -m "Commit message"

Just for reference, if you hadn’t set this up, you’d be typing this instead:

git commit -m "Commit message"

We saved 6 whole letters’ worth of typing time per commit!