Show the current git branch in your bash prompt

Jan 4, 2011 • ryin

 is the current hotness in source control. One of its main strengths is cheap and easy branching and merging. As a result, git users tend to use branches often. This is a good thing. However, when working on multiple repositories with multiple branches, it can be easy to lose track of your current branch.

While a simple git status will yield the current branch, it is often convenient to have the current branch displayed in your prompt. The magical incantation to add to your PS1 variable is $(__git_ps1). This function is defined in/etc/bash_completion.d/git. If you don’t have access to that file, you can find it in contrib/completion/git-completion.bash after cloning this repo:

git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git

Here is a snippet from a .bashrc file for displaying the current git branch in your bash prompt:

source /etc/bash_completion.d/gitexport PS1='\w$(__git_ps1 "(%s)") > '