Git BASH is most common BASH emulation for version control all over the world. I am not going to talk about how it works but show you a trick or two on how to customise you gitbash environment to your liking!

By now I assume you already known the directory-file structure of your Git installation. If you have not done this cd to you installation and type tree..that will give you a good summary where is where. The files we are going to work with are all in file called etc. Here we will edit the bash.bashrc file, and profile file.

What is the difference between bash.bashrc and profile or the so called .bash_profile

When you execute your git-bash.exe you login (type username and password) via console the profile is executed to configure your gitbash shell before the initial command prompt whereas bash.bashrc is executed before the window command prompt.

How to customise your gitbash using bash.bashrc and profile

1. Customising bash.bashrc

Here you are going to edit LINE 19: PS1=... which holds your prompt. You can change the color and style where the colors have to be follwoed by a m now the color code looks like this \[\e[<color-code>m\].

<color-code> MUST take the combination of:

attrb1 + 3-foreground-color or 4-background-color

Example:

\[\e[1;33m\]

• for attrb1 = 1 (bold text)
• for <color-code> = 3-foreground-color yellow

For a list of colors and attributes click here!

You can also add PS1 with current git branch, current success state of the last git command, current timestamp \[\033[01;30m\]\t, return git status indicator, hostname \[\033[00;32m\]\h, git informations and working directory.

2. Customising profile

Here you can add ssh-agent service execution upon executing your gitbash. I would recommend you to use OpenSSH. Adding a block of code will enable gitbash to auto-launch ssh-agent tool on git.

Here is an example:

agent_run_state=$(ssh-add -l >| /dev/null 2>&1; echo $?)
if   [ $agent_run_state = 2 ]; then
  eval $(ssh-agent -s)
  ssh-add
elif [ $agent_run_state = 1 ]; then
  ssh-add
fi

You can also add some manual documentation for yourself to help you if you cannot remember some commands or workarounds. Here is an example:

echo "Welcome back Joseph
Git for Windows v2.7.1(2) 
Release: February 12th 2016
License: GNU Public License version 2
Supports earlier versions of git
Git Command Referrence: https://confluence.atlassian.com/bitbucketserver/basic-git-commands-776639767.html
Git Remotes: http://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Basics-Working-with-Remotes
cURL uses $HOME/_netrc instead of $HOME/.netrc.
git clone -c core.longPaths=true
For more information: file:///C:/bin/Git/ReleaseNotes.html

" Have a look at my customised gitbash:

When I launch my gitbash it takes time to get me started?

If you put alot of executables in your bash.bashrc maybe launch of ssh-agents plus..etc your git bash will take sometime to load. Some people even put manual documentation that will load on execution which is not available when running git help on gitbash.

^_^ —————-> Have a look at my Holy scroll!