git-iam

This is a Git extension for setting local name and email configuration quickly.

It works by accessing a remote JSON file to get user information. The JSON file contains a list of name and email addresses of GitHub users. This extension configures the name and email config settings for the user provided in the current local repository. For more context, see the Applicability section.

Note about v0.2.0

Starting with version 0.2.0, the script also blanks out the global git config for user.name and user.email. We found some students would forget to run this script before committing and they would follow the git instructions to set the global user settings. Any future devs on that machine who also forgot to run this script before committing would unknowingly get the global settings. This change attempts to mitigate that scenario.

Installation

yarn global add git-iam
# or
npm install git-iam --global

Setup

After installation:

git-iam --init https://raw.githubusercontent.com/org/repo/branch/users.json

This command

• saves the user list URL to the global Git config users.url
• adds the iam alias to the global Git config alias.iam

The users.json file (or whatever you decide to call it) should have this format:

{
  "jane": {
    "name": "Jane Dev",
    "email": "[e-mail]"
  },
  "joe": {
    "name": "Joe Dev",
    "email": "[e-mail]"
  }
}

Now you can run this inside of an existing Git repository:

git iam jane

and it will have the same effect as running:

git config --global --unset-all user.name
git config --global --unset-all user.email
git config user.name "Jane Dev"
git config user.email "[e-mail]"

You can verify this by running:

git config --list
# or
cat .git/config

Now the next git commit in this repo will list Jane as the dev on the commit.

Applicability

This might not seem like a justifiable effort - to build something that only saves such few keystrokes. And most people, who are the only devs using their computer, rarely run these commands.

But this is the config setting that dictates which developer (and GitHub user) performed the commit. In a classroom setting where students use every machine in the lab, this config is needed before each commit so the appropriate student gets credit for the commit (most importantly for their GitHub profile).

This script hopes to save our students a lot of time, and increase the accuracy of who is performing commits, so students get the credit they deserve.