Configure Git text editor

Let’s go over how to configure the Git text editor used for commit messages.

Local

To check what editor you’re using:

git config core.editor # /usr/bin/vim

To set the editor to nano:

git config core.editor nano

To set the editor to a custom binary of vim:

git config core.editor /usr/local/bin/vim

To reference global options, pass --global after git config.

To see the global config:

git config --global --list

To set the global core.editor to emacs:

git config --global core.editor emacs

This means when you create or clone a Git repository, the text editor used to edit commit messages—given no local overrides—is emacs.