Various Git commands use the following environment variables:
The Git Repository
These environment variables apply to all core Git commands. Nb:
it is worth noting that they may be used/overridden by SCMS
sitting above Git so take care if using a foreign front-end.
GIT_INDEX_FILE
This environment allows the specification of an alternate
index file. If not specified, the default of $GIT_DIR/index
is used.
GIT_INDEX_VERSION
This environment variable allows the specification of an
index version for new repositories. It won't affect existing
index files. By default index file version 2 or 3 is used.
See git-update-index(1) for more information.
GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY
If the object storage directory is specified via this
environment variable then the sha1 directories are created
underneath - otherwise the default $GIT_DIR/objects directory
is used.
GIT_ALTERNATE_OBJECT_DIRECTORIES
Due to the immutable nature of Git objects, old objects can
be archived into shared, read-only directories. This variable
specifies a ":" separated (on Windows ";" separated) list of
Git object directories which can be used to search for Git
objects. New objects will not be written to these
directories.
Entries that begin with " (double-quote) will be interpreted
as C-style quoted paths, removing leading and trailing
double-quotes and respecting backslash escapes. E.g., the
value "path-with-\"-and-:-in-it":vanilla-path has two paths:
path-with-"-and-:-in-it and vanilla-path.
GIT_DIR
If the GIT_DIR environment variable is set then it specifies
a path to use instead of the default .git for the base of the
repository. The --git-dir command-line option also sets this
value.
GIT_WORK_TREE
Set the path to the root of the working tree. This can also
be controlled by the --work-tree command-line option and the
core.worktree configuration variable.
GIT_NAMESPACE
Set the Git namespace; see gitnamespaces(7) for details. The
--namespace command-line option also sets this value.
GIT_CEILING_DIRECTORIES
This should be a colon-separated list of absolute paths. If
set, it is a list of directories that Git should not chdir up
into while looking for a repository directory (useful for
excluding slow-loading network directories). It will not
exclude the current working directory or a GIT_DIR set on the
command line or in the environment. Normally, Git has to read
the entries in this list and resolve any symlink that might
be present in order to compare them with the current
directory. However, if even this access is slow, you can add
an empty entry to the list to tell Git that the subsequent
entries are not symlinks and needn't be resolved; e.g.,
GIT_CEILING_DIRECTORIES=/maybe/symlink::/very/slow/non/symlink.
GIT_DISCOVERY_ACROSS_FILESYSTEM
When run in a directory that does not have ".git" repository
directory, Git tries to find such a directory in the parent
directories to find the top of the working tree, but by
default it does not cross filesystem boundaries. This
environment variable can be set to true to tell Git not to
stop at filesystem boundaries. Like GIT_CEILING_DIRECTORIES,
this will not affect an explicit repository directory set via
GIT_DIR or on the command line.
GIT_COMMON_DIR
If this variable is set to a path, non-worktree files that
are normally in $GIT_DIR will be taken from this path
instead. Worktree-specific files such as HEAD or index are
taken from $GIT_DIR. See gitrepository-layout(5) and
git-worktree(1) for details. This variable has lower
precedence than other path variables such as GIT_INDEX_FILE,
GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY...
GIT_DEFAULT_HASH
If this variable is set, the default hash algorithm for new
repositories will be set to this value. This value is
currently ignored when cloning; the setting of the remote
repository is used instead. The default is "sha1". THIS
VARIABLE IS EXPERIMENTAL! See --object-format in git-init(1).
Git Commits
GIT_AUTHOR_NAME
The human-readable name used in the author identity when
creating commit or tag objects, or when writing reflogs.
Overrides the user.name and author.name configuration
settings.
GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL
The email address used in the author identity when creating
commit or tag objects, or when writing reflogs. Overrides the
user.email and author.email configuration settings.
GIT_AUTHOR_DATE
The date used for the author identity when creating commit or
tag objects, or when writing reflogs. See git-commit(1) for
valid formats.
GIT_COMMITTER_NAME
The human-readable name used in the committer identity when
creating commit or tag objects, or when writing reflogs.
Overrides the user.name and committer.name configuration
settings.
GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL
The email address used in the author identity when creating
commit or tag objects, or when writing reflogs. Overrides the
user.email and committer.email configuration settings.
GIT_COMMITTER_DATE
The date used for the committer identity when creating commit
or tag objects, or when writing reflogs. See git-commit(1)
for valid formats.
EMAIL
The email address used in the author and committer identities
if no other relevant environment variable or configuration
setting has been set.
Git Diffs
GIT_DIFF_OPTS
Only valid setting is "--unified=??" or "-u??" to set the
number of context lines shown when a unified diff is created.
This takes precedence over any "-U" or "--unified" option
value passed on the Git diff command line.
GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF
When the environment variable GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF is set, the
program named by it is called to generate diffs, and Git does
not use its builtin diff machinery. For a path that is added,
removed, or modified, GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF is called with 7
parameters:
path old-file old-hex old-mode new-file new-hex new-mode
where:
<old|new>-file
are files GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF can use to read the contents of
<old|new>,
<old|new>-hex
are the 40-hexdigit SHA-1 hashes,
<old|new>-mode
are the octal representation of the file modes.
The file parameters can point at the user's working file
(e.g. new-file in "git-diff-files"), /dev/null (e.g.
old-file when a new file is added), or a temporary file (e.g.
old-file in the index). GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF should not worry
about unlinking the temporary file --- it is removed when
GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF exits.
For a path that is unmerged, GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF is called with
1 parameter, <path>.
For each path GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF is called, two environment
variables, GIT_DIFF_PATH_COUNTER and GIT_DIFF_PATH_TOTAL are
set.
GIT_DIFF_PATH_COUNTER
A 1-based counter incremented by one for every path.
GIT_DIFF_PATH_TOTAL
The total number of paths.
other
GIT_MERGE_VERBOSITY
A number controlling the amount of output shown by the
recursive merge strategy. Overrides merge.verbosity. See
git-merge(1)
GIT_PAGER
This environment variable overrides $PAGER. If it is set to
an empty string or to the value "cat", Git will not launch a
pager. See also the core.pager option in git-config(1).
GIT_PROGRESS_DELAY
A number controlling how many seconds to delay before showing
optional progress indicators. Defaults to 2.
GIT_EDITOR
This environment variable overrides $EDITOR and $VISUAL. It
is used by several Git commands when, on interactive mode, an
editor is to be launched. See also git-var(1) and the
core.editor option in git-config(1).
GIT_SEQUENCE_EDITOR
This environment variable overrides the configured Git editor
when editing the todo list of an interactive rebase. See also
git-rebase(1) and the sequence.editor option in
git-config(1).
GIT_SSH, GIT_SSH_COMMAND
If either of these environment variables is set then git
fetch and git push will use the specified command instead of
ssh when they need to connect to a remote system. The
command-line parameters passed to the configured command are
determined by the ssh variant. See ssh.variant option in
git-config(1) for details.
$GIT_SSH_COMMAND takes precedence over $GIT_SSH, and is
interpreted by the shell, which allows additional arguments
to be included. $GIT_SSH on the other hand must be just the
path to a program (which can be a wrapper shell script, if
additional arguments are needed).
Usually it is easier to configure any desired options through
your personal .ssh/config file. Please consult your ssh
documentation for further details.
GIT_SSH_VARIANT
If this environment variable is set, it overrides Git's
autodetection whether GIT_SSH/GIT_SSH_COMMAND/core.sshCommand
refer to OpenSSH, plink or tortoiseplink. This variable
overrides the config setting ssh.variant that serves the same
purpose.
GIT_ASKPASS
If this environment variable is set, then Git commands which
need to acquire passwords or passphrases (e.g. for HTTP or
IMAP authentication) will call this program with a suitable
prompt as command-line argument and read the password from
its STDOUT. See also the core.askPass option in
git-config(1).
GIT_TERMINAL_PROMPT
If this environment variable is set to 0, git will not prompt
on the terminal (e.g., when asking for HTTP authentication).
GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL, GIT_CONFIG_SYSTEM
Take the configuration from the given files instead from
global or system-level configuration files. If
GIT_CONFIG_SYSTEM is set, the system config file defined at
build time (usually /etc/gitconfig) will not be read.
Likewise, if GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL is set, neither
$HOME/.gitconfig nor $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config will be
read. Can be set to /dev/null to skip reading configuration
files of the respective level.
GIT_CONFIG_NOSYSTEM
Whether to skip reading settings from the system-wide
$(prefix)/etc/gitconfig file. This environment variable can
be used along with $HOME and $XDG_CONFIG_HOME to create a
predictable environment for a picky script, or you can set it
temporarily to avoid using a buggy /etc/gitconfig file while
waiting for someone with sufficient permissions to fix it.
GIT_FLUSH
If this environment variable is set to "1", then commands
such as git blame (in incremental mode), git rev-list, git
log, git check-attr and git check-ignore will force a flush
of the output stream after each record have been flushed. If
this variable is set to "0", the output of these commands
will be done using completely buffered I/O. If this
environment variable is not set, Git will choose buffered or
record-oriented flushing based on whether stdout appears to
be redirected to a file or not.
GIT_TRACE
Enables general trace messages, e.g. alias expansion,
built-in command execution and external command execution.
If this variable is set to "1", "2" or "true" (comparison is
case insensitive), trace messages will be printed to stderr.
If the variable is set to an integer value greater than 2 and
lower than 10 (strictly) then Git will interpret this value
as an open file descriptor and will try to write the trace
messages into this file descriptor.
Alternatively, if the variable is set to an absolute path
(starting with a / character), Git will interpret this as a
file path and will try to append the trace messages to it.
Unsetting the variable, or setting it to empty, "0" or
"false" (case insensitive) disables trace messages.
GIT_TRACE_FSMONITOR
Enables trace messages for the filesystem monitor extension.
See GIT_TRACE for available trace output options.
GIT_TRACE_PACK_ACCESS
Enables trace messages for all accesses to any packs. For
each access, the pack file name and an offset in the pack is
recorded. This may be helpful for troubleshooting some
pack-related performance problems. See GIT_TRACE for
available trace output options.
GIT_TRACE_PACKET
Enables trace messages for all packets coming in or out of a
given program. This can help with debugging object
negotiation or other protocol issues. Tracing is turned off
at a packet starting with "PACK" (but see GIT_TRACE_PACKFILE
below). See GIT_TRACE for available trace output options.
GIT_TRACE_PACKFILE
Enables tracing of packfiles sent or received by a given
program. Unlike other trace output, this trace is verbatim:
no headers, and no quoting of binary data. You almost
certainly want to direct into a file (e.g.,
GIT_TRACE_PACKFILE=/tmp/my.pack) rather than displaying it on
the terminal or mixing it with other trace output.
Note that this is currently only implemented for the client
side of clones and fetches.
GIT_TRACE_PERFORMANCE
Enables performance related trace messages, e.g. total
execution time of each Git command. See GIT_TRACE for
available trace output options.
GIT_TRACE_REFS
Enables trace messages for operations on the ref database.
See GIT_TRACE for available trace output options.
GIT_TRACE_SETUP
Enables trace messages printing the .git, working tree and
current working directory after Git has completed its setup
phase. See GIT_TRACE for available trace output options.
GIT_TRACE_SHALLOW
Enables trace messages that can help debugging fetching /
cloning of shallow repositories. See GIT_TRACE for available
trace output options.
GIT_TRACE_CURL
Enables a curl full trace dump of all incoming and outgoing
data, including descriptive information, of the git transport
protocol. This is similar to doing curl --trace-ascii on the
command line. See GIT_TRACE for available trace output
options.
GIT_TRACE_CURL_NO_DATA
When a curl trace is enabled (see GIT_TRACE_CURL above), do
not dump data (that is, only dump info lines and headers).
GIT_TRACE2
Enables more detailed trace messages from the "trace2"
library. Output from GIT_TRACE2 is a simple text-based format
for human readability.
If this variable is set to "1", "2" or "true" (comparison is
case insensitive), trace messages will be printed to stderr.
If the variable is set to an integer value greater than 2 and
lower than 10 (strictly) then Git will interpret this value
as an open file descriptor and will try to write the trace
messages into this file descriptor.
Alternatively, if the variable is set to an absolute path
(starting with a / character), Git will interpret this as a
file path and will try to append the trace messages to it. If
the path already exists and is a directory, the trace
messages will be written to files (one per process) in that
directory, named according to the last component of the SID
and an optional counter (to avoid filename collisions).
In addition, if the variable is set to
af_unix:[<socket_type>:]<absolute-pathname>, Git will try to
open the path as a Unix Domain Socket. The socket type can be
either stream or dgram.
Unsetting the variable, or setting it to empty, "0" or
"false" (case insensitive) disables trace messages.
See Trace2 documentation
GIT_TRACE2_EVENT
This setting writes a JSON-based format that is suited for
machine interpretation. See GIT_TRACE2 for available trace
output options and Trace2 documentation
GIT_TRACE2_PERF
In addition to the text-based messages available in
GIT_TRACE2, this setting writes a column-based format for
understanding nesting regions. See GIT_TRACE2 for available
trace output options and Trace2 documentation
GIT_TRACE_REDACT
By default, when tracing is activated, Git redacts the values
of cookies, the "Authorization:" header, and the
"Proxy-Authorization:" header. Set this variable to 0 to
prevent this redaction.
GIT_LITERAL_PATHSPECS
Setting this variable to 1 will cause Git to treat all
pathspecs literally, rather than as glob patterns. For
example, running GIT_LITERAL_PATHSPECS=1 git log -- '*.c'
will search for commits that touch the path *.c, not any
paths that the glob *.c matches. You might want this if you
are feeding literal paths to Git (e.g., paths previously
given to you by git ls-tree, --raw diff output, etc).
GIT_GLOB_PATHSPECS
Setting this variable to 1 will cause Git to treat all
pathspecs as glob patterns (aka "glob" magic).
GIT_NOGLOB_PATHSPECS
Setting this variable to 1 will cause Git to treat all
pathspecs as literal (aka "literal" magic).
GIT_ICASE_PATHSPECS
Setting this variable to 1 will cause Git to treat all
pathspecs as case-insensitive.
GIT_REFLOG_ACTION
When a ref is updated, reflog entries are created to keep
track of the reason why the ref was updated (which is
typically the name of the high-level command that updated the
ref), in addition to the old and new values of the ref. A
scripted Porcelain command can use set_reflog_action helper
function in git-sh-setup to set its name to this variable
when it is invoked as the top level command by the end user,
to be recorded in the body of the reflog.
GIT_REF_PARANOIA
If set to 1, include broken or badly named refs when
iterating over lists of refs. In a normal, non-corrupted
repository, this does nothing. However, enabling it may help
git to detect and abort some operations in the presence of
broken refs. Git sets this variable automatically when
performing destructive operations like git-prune(1). You
should not need to set it yourself unless you want to be
paranoid about making sure an operation has touched every ref
(e.g., because you are cloning a repository to make a
backup).
GIT_ALLOW_PROTOCOL
If set to a colon-separated list of protocols, behave as if
protocol.allow is set to never, and each of the listed
protocols has protocol.<name>.allow set to always (overriding
any existing configuration). In other words, any protocol not
mentioned will be disallowed (i.e., this is a whitelist, not
a blacklist). See the description of protocol.allow in
git-config(1) for more details.
GIT_PROTOCOL_FROM_USER
Set to 0 to prevent protocols used by fetch/push/clone which
are configured to the user state. This is useful to restrict
recursive submodule initialization from an untrusted
repository or for programs which feed potentially-untrusted
URLS to git commands. See git-config(1) for more details.
GIT_PROTOCOL
For internal use only. Used in handshaking the wire protocol.
Contains a colon : separated list of keys with optional
values key[=value]. Presence of unknown keys and values must
be ignored.
GIT_OPTIONAL_LOCKS
If set to 0, Git will complete any requested operation
without performing any optional sub-operations that require
taking a lock. For example, this will prevent git status from
refreshing the index as a side effect. This is useful for
processes running in the background which do not want to
cause lock contention with other operations on the
repository. Defaults to 1.
GIT_REDIRECT_STDIN, GIT_REDIRECT_STDOUT, GIT_REDIRECT_STDERR
Windows-only: allow redirecting the standard
input/output/error handles to paths specified by the
environment variables. This is particularly useful in
multi-threaded applications where the canonical way to pass
standard handles via CreateProcess() is not an option because
it would require the handles to be marked inheritable (and
consequently every spawned process would inherit them,
possibly blocking regular Git operations). The primary
intended use case is to use named pipes for communication
(e.g. \\.\pipe\my-git-stdin-123).
Two special values are supported: off will simply close the
corresponding standard handle, and if GIT_REDIRECT_STDERR is
2>&1, standard error will be redirected to the same handle as
standard output.
GIT_PRINT_SHA1_ELLIPSIS (deprecated)
If set to yes, print an ellipsis following an (abbreviated)
SHA-1 value. This affects indications of detached HEADs (‐
git-checkout(1)) and the raw diff output (git-diff(1)).
Printing an ellipsis in the cases mentioned is no longer
considered adequate and support for it is likely to be
removed in the foreseeable future (along with the variable).
