How to Create Custom Git Commands on Windows

Introduction

Git is one of the most popular version control systems, widely used by developers to manage and track changes in their code. While Git comes with built-in commands that handle most tasks, sometimes you may want to create custom commands to simplify repetitive tasks or enhance your workflow.

Why Create Custom Git Commands?

Before diving into the technical details, it's important to understand why creating custom Git commands can be useful:

• Automation: Save time on repetitive tasks by wrapping multiple Git commands into one.
• Simplification: Reduce complex command sequences into a single, easy-to-remember command.
• Consistency: Ensure that your team follows the same workflow by creating shared commands.
• Personalization: Tailor Git’s behavior to match your specific workflow needs.

In this article, we’ll walk through how to create a custom Git command.

Fast Push Command

Let’s create a command called fpush for quickly pushing changes. This command will perform the following steps:

1. Pull data from the current branch
2. Stage all unstaged changes
3. Commit these changes
4. Push the commit to the server

1. Create the Command File

• Create a new folder to hold files with custom commands (for example, "E:/git-custom-commands").
• Inside this folder, create a new command file named git-fastpush.cmd.

• Add the following content to the file:
  

  git pull
  git add .
  git commit -m %1
  git push
  

Explanation of Commands:

• git pull: Fetch changes from a remote repository into the current branch.
• git add .: Stage all unstaged changes.
• git commit -m %1: Commit changes, where %1 is the first argument passed to the command (e.g., git fpush "this_is_commit_message").
• git push: Push the local commit to the server.

2. Add a New Alias to the Git Config

Next, we need to add the new alias to the Git configuration with reference to our file. Run the following command in the console:

git config --global alias.fpush "!E:/git-custom-commands/git-fastpush.cmd"

2. Run the New Command

You're all set! Now you can execute your new Git command:

git fpush "your_comment"

Here we go. Feel free to create your own custom commands!