Lazygit, the convenience of GUI with the power of git CLI
Built-in git client is a popular feature of modern IDEs. It is handy for committing code edits, switching branches, and fetching remote changes without distracting context switching. I have been doing that in Visual Studio Code for years until I decided to try Helix and accidentally became a much more efficient coder using it. The version control client isn’t built into my new editor, so I moved back to CLI like in the good old days.
I don’t mind using git CLI directly for simple things, but it is famously verbose for more advanced use cases. I am just too lazy to memorize longer commands. Also, with my crappy typing skills, it is a super error-prone task. Luckily, I found a project that ticks all the boxes of a good git client: works in the terminal, is super easy to use and, powerful enough to handle more advanced scenarios. Lazygit by Jesse Duffield made me a more productive git user than ever.
Using lazygit
You can flick through the TUI (terminal user interface) panels using arrow keys or vim-style H/J/K/L. Some panels have multiple tabs, which you can navigate using square brackets. Besides navigating through sections and tabs, the only keyboard shortcut you need to remember is ?, which shows you contextually available operations based on an active panel/tab.
Keybinginds are intuitive, and you can usually guess the shortcut for the intended operation. Most likely to “commit” something, the c is what you’re looking for while the files panel is active. Similarly, hitting n creates a new worktree or a branch if you’re in that panel. If things are not as straightforward to guess, quick check via ? is your friend. Have a look at this quick example where I stage a file, write a commit message and force push changes to remote repository.
The documentation is full of practical demos. It took me a few days until I memorized all commonly used operations. Give it a go, and I’m sure you will fly through your git repositories faster than ever. Enjoy!