Git

git is at the core of every developer's workflow, a tool that cannot be ignored. As such, a few features are provided out-of-the-box:

• Sane defaults.
• Common and useful aliases.
• User identity injection via environment variables.
• Auto-configured signature key for signed commits.
• Automatic cloning of a remote repository on startup.

Configuration Lookup

The configuration lookup sequence is as follows:

• Workspace level (/etc/gitconfig): sane default configurations, aliases, and filters (should not be overridden by the user).
• User level (~/.gitconfig): allowing users to define their personal preferences and override configurations found in the workspace level file.

Credential Cache

By default, Git caches your credentials in memory for one hour (3600 seconds) using the built‑in credential helper:

[credential]
  helper = cache --timeout=3600

When authenticating with a remote that requires basic authentication (such as over HTTPS), Git will automatically reuse the cached credentials until the timeout expires.

The cached username and password are reused until the timeout expires.

Need a different duration? Set WS_GIT_CREDENTIAL_CACHE_TIMEOUT (seconds) before launching the container. Use -1 to keep credentials for one year.

Configuration Injection

Upon startup, the existence of both envs and files we will checked in order to automatically configure user-level settings.

Environment Variables

• GIT_COMMITTER_NAME: sets [user.name] in ~/.gitconfig to the provided value.
• GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL: sets [user.email] in ~/.gitconfig to the provided value.
• WS_GIT_CREDENTIAL_CACHE_TIMEOUT: Lifetime (seconds) of cached Git credentials.
• WS_GIT_CLONE_REPO: Clones this repository into ${WS_SERVER_ROOT} at startup.

Files

• ~/.ssh/signingkey.pub: when this file is present, it activates the automatic setting of [commit.gpgsign] and [commit.tag] configurations to true.
• ~/.ssh/signingkey: this is the private counterpart to ~/.ssh/signingkey.pub, used in the signing process.

Automated Workspace Cloning

In various scenarios, a workspace instance may need to automatically clone a remote repository during startup. Common use cases include CI, short-lived instances used during integration testing, or environments in the cloud where persistent volumes are costly or impractical.

To facilitate this, you can provide the environment variable WS_GIT_CLONE_REPO. If specified, the workspace will clone the repository into WS_ROOT(default: /workspace) if the directory is empty.

ℹ️ INFO

If the repository requires authentication, ensure the necessary credentials are already configured within the container before startup (using other autoload scripts).

Aliases

Aliases can be directly utilized via the git <alias> command. For instance, git lg will display a customized commit graph.

The list is a compilation of useful aliases:

• amend: Reapplies the last commit without modifying its commit message.
• clean-gone: Removes local branches that no longer have a corresponding remote.
• lg: Displays a beautiful graphical representation of the commit history.
• nah: Hard resets the changes and removes untracked files and directories.
• pull-theirs: Executes a forceful pull, and resolve conflicts by favoring remote changes over local ones.
• uncommit: Soft resets the HEAD to the previous commit.
• wip: Stages all changes and creates a new commit with a "WIP" message.

To display aliases set for the session in zsh, execute the command below:

alias | grep git