Environment Variables

Control `.git` behavior, authentication, and output formatting using environment variables. These override standard configuration files.

ℹ️

Hierarchy: Environment variables take precedence over .gitconfig, which takes precedence over ~/.gitconfig.

Standard Variables

These variables are available globally within the `.git` runtime environment.

Variable	Type	Description
`HOMEBREW_GIT`	String	The root directory for the current workspace.
`GIT_TERMINAL_PROMPT`	Bool	Set to `0` to disable password prompts in CI/CD pipelines.
`GIT_CONFIG_COUNT`	Int	Internal counter for config loading depth.

Authentication

To configure authentication headers programmatically, use the HG proxy variables.

bash

# Set token for authentication
export GIT_TOKEN="ghp_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"

# Configure HTTP proxy if behind firewall
export GIT_HTTP_PROXY="http://proxy.example.com:8080"

⚠️

Security Warning: Never commit these variables directly into version control. Use a .env file or secret manager.

Formatting Output

You can customize the pager and diff formatting using these variables.

zsh

# Set default pager to less with line numbers
export GIT_PAGER="less -N"

# Enable color diff globally
export GIT_COLOR_DIFF="auto"

Internal Flags

Advanced debugging flags for developers.

GIT_TRACE: Output trace information to stderr.
GIT_DEBUG: Enable verbose debugging mode.
GIT_EXEC_PATH: Override the internal execution path.