Gitting setup with multiple git profiles

This is one of those topics that I never remember and always google. I get a nice little setup with multiple github accounts and custom configurations on each. Then I migrate computers and realize I have promptly forgotten how I did it.

So for my future self here is a basic setup to multiple git profiles.

Creating a base .gitconfig

Create a base .gitconfig in your home folder. The config will specify sub config files that correspond to work envrionments contained in folders.

So for example we have the folder structure:

code
 ├── work
 │    ├── some-repo
 │    └── another-repo
 └── personal
      ├── stuff-you-shouldnt-work-on-at-work
      └── personal-project-worth-millions

The corresponding .gitconfig will be mapped to directory specific .gitconfigs also located in the home folder. So we'll expect something like the following in the parent .gitconfig.

[includeIf "gitdir:~/code/work/"]
  path = ~/.gitconfig-work
[includeIf "gitdir:~/code/personal/"]
  path = ~/.gitconfig-personal

This designates two git profiles that map to the /work and /personal directories.

Configuring the .gitconfig as a profile

So now I have split my work and personal git profiles. Or N profiles however may I need, nested under directory mappings.

Next I can setup different profiles for git user, init, and other configurations specific to the mapped account. User configurations are the most basic and essential for getting started.

[user]
 name = personal
 email = personal-email@gmail.com

Also because we aren't slave drivers, calling our main branch master is archaic. So please set the default branch to main.

 defaultBranch = main

Last, because we are using multiple profiles it's also likely we have multiple ssh keys setup. One ssh key corresponding to one profile, and one github/gitlab account.

This creates an annoying problem where when pulling/pushing to a repo we'll need to replace github.com with github.com-personal or github.com-work depending on the profile.

This is one of those annoying things developers love to automate. So here's how.

[url "git@github.com-personal:"]
 insteadOf = git:github.com:

Now instead of having to write github.com-personal in the remote url, we can just use github.com and have it interpret automatically.

What did I just do?

All this does some pure magic for us. Now when we call git init we get a new repo with main as the default branch.

When I call a git clone on a repo I'll see that github.com is automatically interpreted as the url associated with the profile I'm working in.

This also applies to the remote url when calling git push type actions.