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posh-git

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Table of contents:

Overview

posh-git is a PowerShell module that integrates Git and PowerShell by providing Git status summary information that can be displayed in the PowerShell prompt, e.g.:

C:\Users\Keith\GitHub\posh-git [main ≡ +0 ~1 -0 | +0 ~1 -0 !]>

posh-git also provides tab completion support for common git commands, branch names, paths and more. For example, with posh-git, PowerShell can tab complete git commands like checkout by typing git ch and pressing the <kbd>tab</kbd> key. That will tab complete to git checkout and if you keep pressing <kbd>tab</kbd>, it will cycle through other command matches such as cherry and cherry-pick. You can also tab complete remote names and branch names e.g.: git pull or<tab> ma<tab> tab completes to git pull origin main.

Versions

posh-git v1.0

Windows (AppVeyor)Linux/macOS (Travis)Code Coverage Status
master build statusmaster build statusmaster build coverage

README • CHANGELOG

Releases

posh-git v0.x

Windows (AppVeyor)Code Coverage Status
v0 build statusv0 build coverage

README • CHANGELOG

Releases

Installation

These installation instructions, as well as the rest of this README, applies only to version 1.x of posh-git. For v0.x installation instructions see this README.

Prerequisites

Before installing posh-git make sure the following prerequisites have been met.

  1. Windows PowerShell 5.x or PowerShell Core 6.0. You can get PowerShell Core 6.0 for Windows, Linux or macOS from here. Check your PowerShell version by executing $PSVersionTable.PSVersion.

  2. On Windows, script execution policy must be set to either RemoteSigned or Unrestricted. Check the script execution policy setting by executing Get-ExecutionPolicy. If the policy is not set to one of the two required values, run PowerShell as Administrator and execute Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope CurrentUser -Confirm.

  3. Git must be installed and available via the PATH environment variable. Check that git is accessible from PowerShell by executing git --version from PowerShell. If git is not recognized as the name of a command, verify that you have Git installed. If not, install Git from https://git-scm.com. If you have Git installed, make sure the path to git is in your PATH environment variable.

Installing posh-git via PowerShellGet on Linux, macOS and Windows

posh-git is available on the PowerShell Gallery and can be installed using the built-in PowerShellGet module.

  1. Start Windows PowerShell 5.x or PowerShell >= v6 (pwsh).

  2. Execute one of the following two commands from an elevated PowerShell prompt, depending on whether (A) you've never installed posh-git, or (B) you've already installed a previous version:

    # (A) You've never installed posh-git from the PowerShell Gallery
PowerShellGet\Install-Module posh-git -Scope CurrentUser -Force

    NOTE: If you're asked to trust packages from the PowerShell Gallery, answer yes to continue installation of posh-git

    OR

    # (B) You've already installed a previous version of posh-git from the PowerShell Gallery
PowerShellGet\Update-Module posh-git

Installing posh-git via Chocolatey

If you prefer to manage posh-git as a Windows package, you can use Chocolatey to install posh-git. If you don't have Chocolatey, you can install it from the Chocolatey Install page. With Chocolatey installed, execute the following command to install posh-git:

choco install poshgit

Installing posh-git via Scoop

Another popular package manager for Windows is Scoop, which you can also use to install posh-git. With Scoop installed, execute these commands to install posh-git and import it into your profile:

scoop bucket add extras
scoop install posh-git
Add-PoshGitToProfile

Installing posh-git Manually

If you need to test/debug changes prior to contributing here, or would otherwise prefer to install posh-git without the aid of a package manager, you can execute Import-Module <path-to-src\posh-git.psd1>. For example, if you have git cloned posh-git to ~\git\posh-git you can import this version of posh-git by executing Import-Module ~\git\posh-git\src\posh-git.psd1.

Using posh-git

After you have installed posh-git, you need to configure your PowerShell session to use the posh-git module.

Step 1: Import posh-git

The first step is to import the module into your PowerShell session which will enable git tab completion. You can do this with the command Import-Module posh-git.

Step 2: Import posh-git from your PowerShell profile

You do not want to have to manually execute the Import-Module command every time you open a new PowerShell prompt. Let's have PowerShell import this module for you in each new PowerShell session. We can do this by either executing the command Add-PoshGitToProfile or by editing your PowerShell profile script and adding the command Import-Module posh-git.

If you want posh-git to be available in all your PowerShell hosts (console, ISE, etc) then execute Add-PoshGitToProfile -AllHosts. This will add a line containing Import-Module posh-git to the file $profile.CurrentUserAllHosts.

If you want posh-git to be available in just the current host, then execute Add-PoshGitToProfile. This will add the same command but to the file $profile.CurrentUserCurrentHost.

If you want posh-git to be available for all users on the system, start PowerShell as Administrator or via sudo (sudo pwsh) on Linux/macOS then execute Add-PoshGitToProfile -AllUsers -AllHosts. This will add the import command to $profile.AllUsersAllHosts.

If you want to configure posh-git for all users but only for the current host, drop the -AllHosts parameter and the command will modify $profile.AllUsersCurrentHost.

If you'd prefer, you can manually edit the desired PowerShell profile script. Open (or create) your profile script with the command notepad $profile.CurrentUserAllHosts. In the profile script, add the following line:

Import-Module posh-git

Save the profile script, then close PowerShell and open a new PowerShell session. Type git fe and then press <kbd>tab</kbd>. If posh-git has been imported, that command should tab complete to git fetch.

If you want posh-git to detect your own aliases for git, then you must have set the alias before importing posh-git. So if you have Set-Alias g git then ensure it is executed before Import-Module posh-git, and g checkout will complete as if you'd typed git.

Git status summary information

The Git status summary information provides a wealth of "Git status" information at a glance, all the time in your prompt.

By default, the status summary has the following format:

[{HEAD-name} S +A ~B -C !D | +E ~F -G !H W]

The symbols and surrounding text can be customized by the corresponding properties on $GitPromptSettings.

For example, a status of [main ≡ +0 ~2 -1 | +1 ~1 -0] corresponds to the following git status:

# On branch main
#
# Changes to be committed:
#   (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
#
#        modified:   this-changed.txt
#        modified:   this-too.txt
#        deleted:    gone.ps1
#
# Changed but not updated:
#   (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
#   (use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)
#
#        modified:   not-staged.ps1
#
# Untracked files:
#   (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
#
#        new.file

Customization variables

posh-git adds variables to your session to let you customize it, including $GitPromptSettings, $GitTabSettings, and $TortoiseGitSettings. For an example of how to configure your PowerShell profile script to import the posh-git module and create a custom prompt function that displays git status info, see the Customizing Your PowerShell Prompt section below.

Note on performance: Displaying file status in the git prompt for a very large repo can be prohibitively slow. Rather than turn off file status entirely ($GitPromptSettings.EnableFileStatus = $false), you can disable it on a repo-by-repo basis by adding individual repository paths to $GitPromptSettings.RepositoriesInWhichToDisableFileStatus.

Customizing the posh-git prompt

When you import the posh-git module, it will replace PowerShell's default prompt function with a new prompt function. The posh-git prompt function will display Git status summary information when the current directory is inside a Git repository. posh-git will not replace the prompt function if it has detected that you have your own, customized prompt function.

The prompt function provided by posh-git creates a prompt that looks like this:

~\GitHub\posh-git [main ≡]>

You can customize the posh-git prompt function or define your own custom prompt function. The rest of this section covers how to customize posh-git's prompt function using the global variable $GitPromptSettings.

If you'd like to make any of following changes permanent, i.e. available whenever you start PowerShell, put the corresponding setting(s) in one of your profile scripts after the line that imports posh-git.

For instance, you can customize the default prompt prefix to display a colored timestamp with these settings:

$GitPromptSettings.DefaultPromptPrefix.Text = '$(Get-Date -f "MM-dd HH:mm:ss") '
$GitPromptSettings.DefaultPromptPrefix.ForegroundColor = [ConsoleColor]::Magenta

This will change the prompt to:

02-18 13:45:19 ~\GitHub\posh-git [main ≡]>

If you would prefer not to have any path under your home directory abbreviated with ~, use the following setting:

$GitPromptSettings.DefaultPromptAbbreviateHomeDirectory = $false

This will change the prompt to:

C:\Users\Keith\GitHub\posh-git [main ≡]>

If you would like to change the color of the path, you can use the following setting on Windows:

$GitPromptSettings.DefaultPromptPath.ForegroundColor = 'Orange'

Note: Setting the ForegroundColor to a color name, other than one of the standard ConsoleColor names, only works on Windows. On Windows, posh-git uses the [System.Drawing.ColorTranslator]::FromHtml(string colorName) method to parse a color name as an HTML color. For a complete list of HTML colors, see this W3Schools page.

If you are on Linux or macOS and desire an Orange path, you will need to specify the RGB value for Orange e.g.:

$GitPromptSettings.DefaultPromptPath.ForegroundColor = 0xFFA500

This will change the prompt to:

~\GitHub\posh-git [main]>

If you would like to make your prompt span two lines, with a newline after the Git status summary, use this setting:

$GitPromptSettings.DefaultPromptBeforeSuffix.Text = '`n'

This will change the prompt to:

~\GitHub\posh-git [main ≡] >

You can swap the order of the path and the Git status summary with the following setting:

$GitPromptSettings.DefaultPromptWriteStatusFirst = $true

This will change the prompt to:

[main ≡] ~\GitHub\posh-git>

Finally, you can combine these settings to customize the posh-git prompt fairly significantly. In the DefaultPromptSuffix field below, we are prepending the PowerShell history id number before the prompt char > e.g.:

$GitPromptSettings.DefaultPromptWriteStatusFirst = $true
$GitPromptSettings.DefaultPromptBeforeSuffix.Text = '`n$([DateTime]::now.ToString("MM-dd HH:mm:ss"))'
$GitPromptSettings.DefaultPromptBeforeSuffix.ForegroundColor = 0x808080
$GitPromptSettings.DefaultPromptSuffix = ' $((Get-History -Count 1).id + 1)$(">" * ($nestedPromptLevel + 1)) '

This will change the prompt to:

[main ≡] ~\GitHub\posh-git 02-18 14:04:35 38>

Finally, the path portion of the prompt can be contained within delimiters. For instance, if you would like the containing characters to be red, curly braces, the following settings can be used:

$GitPromptSettings.BeforePath = '{'
$GitPromptSettings.AfterPath = '}'
$GitPromptSettings.BeforePath.ForegroundColor = 'Red'
$GitPromptSettings.AfterPath.ForegroundColor = 'Red'

With these additional values, the previous prompt would become

[main ≡] {~\GitHub\posh-git} 02-18 14:04:35 38>

Prompt Layouts

For reference, the following layouts show the relative position of the various parts of the posh-git prompt. Note that <> denotes parts of the prompt that may not appear depending on the status of settings and whether or not the current dir is in a Git repository. To simplify the layout, DP is being used as an abbreviation for DefaultPrompt settings.

Default prompt layout:

{DPPrefix}{BeforePath}{DPPath}{AfterPath}{PathStatusSeparator}<{BeforeStatus}{Status}{AfterStatus}>{DPBeforeSuffix}<{DPDebug}><{DPTimingFormat}>{DPSuffix}

Prompt layout when DefaultPromptWriteStatusFirst is set to $true:

{DPPrefix}<{BeforeStatus}{Status}{AfterStatus}>{PathStatusSeparator}{BeforePath}{DPPath}{AfterPath}{DPBeforeSuffix}<{DPDebug}><{DPTimingFormat}>{DPSuffix}

Displaying Error Information

If you want to display the error status of the last command, you can use the values stored in the $global:GitPromptValues object which includes the value of $LastExitCode and $? (represented by the property DollarQuestion). Here is a prompt customization that displays a Red exit code value when $LastExitCode is non-zero or a Red ! if $? is $false:

function global:PromptWriteErrorInfo() {
    if ($global:GitPromptValues.DollarQuestion) { return }

    if ($global:GitPromptValues.LastExitCode) {
        "`e[31m(" + $global:GitPromptValues.LastExitCode + ") `e[0m"
    }
    else {
        "`e[31m! `e[0m"
    }
}

$global:GitPromptSettings.DefaultPromptBeforeSuffix.Text = '`n$(PromptWriteErrorInfo)$([DateTime]::now.ToString("MM-dd HH:mm:ss"))'

When a PowerShell command fails, this is the prompt you will see:

~\GitHub\posh-git [main ≡] ! 07-01 22:36:31>

When an external application returns a non-zero exit code, 1 in this case, you will see the exit code in the prompt:

~\GitHub\posh-git [main ≡] (1) 07-01 22:32:28>

Note that until you run an external application that sets $LASTEXITCODE to zero or you manually set the variable to 0, you will see the exit code for any error. In addition to LastExitCode and DollarQuestion, $global:GitPromptValues also has IsAdmin and LastPrompt properties. The LastPrompt property contains the ANSI escaped string that was used for the last prompt. This can be useful for debugging your prompt display particularly when using ANSI/VT sequences.

$GitPromptScriptBlock

If you require even more customization than $GitPromptSettings provides, you can create your own prompt function to show whatever information you want. See the Customizing Your PowerShell Prompt wiki page for details.

However, if you need a custom prompt just to perform some non-prompt logic, you can still use posh-git's prompt function to write out the prompt string. This can be done with the $GitPromptScriptBlock variable as shown below e.g.:

# my profile.ps1
function prompt {
    # Your non-prompt logic here

    # Have posh-git display its default prompt
    & $GitPromptScriptBlock
}

And if you'd like to write prompt text before and/or after the posh-git prompt, you can use posh-git's Write-Prompt command as shown below:

# my profile.ps1
function prompt {
    # Your non-prompt logic here
    $prompt = Write-Prompt "Text before posh-git prompt " -ForegroundColor ([ConsoleColor]::Green)
    $prompt += & $GitPromptScriptBlock
    $prompt += Write-Prompt "Text after posh-git prompt" -ForegroundColor ([ConsoleColor]::Magenta)
    if ($prompt) { "$prompt " } else { " " }
}

Based on work by