It's Magit! An Emacs mode for Git

Magit is an interface to the version control system Git, implemented as an Emacs extension.

Unlike Emacs' native Version Control package which strives to provide a unified interface to various version control systems, Magit only supports Git and can therefor better take advantage of its native features.

Magit supports GNU Emacs 23.2 or later; 24.1 or later is recommended. Magit supports Git 1.7.2.5 or later; 1.8.2 or later is recommended. The minimal versions are those available in Debian oldstable.

Table of Contents

• Getting Started
• Getting Help
• Installation
  • Installing from Melpa
  • Installing from Git
  • Installing from Tarball
• Dependencies
• Development

Getting Started

To get started with Magit, run M-x magit-status. If you are inside a Git repository this opens a buffer that summarizes its status. Otherwise you are first prompted for a repository. Read the short help for magit-status-mode (C-h m in the status buffer).

Then edit and save some files files, refresh the status buffer (g), stage changes (s) and commit (c) them.

For more details consult the Magit user manual. You can read it with C-u C-h i magit.info or on the web.

We can also strongly recommend this introduction from the Mastering Emacs blog. It even describes some new features that are not yet documented in the manual.

Magit also has a website.

Getting Help

When something breaks please see the curated list of known issues and the FAQ. If that doesn't help check the list of all open issues.

If everything else fails please open a new issue or ask for help on the mailing list.

Installation

Beginning with version 24.1 Emacs includes a package management facility known as Elpa or package.el. Using an Elpa package repository is the easiest and recommended way to install and update Magit and its dependencies.

Installing from Melpa

Magit is available from both of the two big Elpa repositories, Marmalade (stable releases) and Melpa (snapshots). Because the latest Magit release is very outdated we recommend the use of the development version from Melpa, for the time being. (If you are using the development version of Emacs, then you have to do so.)

To install Magit, first enable the use of the Melpa repository by following the instructions provided by the Melpa project.

Assuming that you are using Emacs 24, haven't configured package.el yet, and want to only install Magit and its dependencies from Melpa (and otherwise the stable versions from Marmalade), add the following to you init file (~/.emacs.el or ~/.emacs.d/init.el):

(require 'package)
(add-to-list 'package-archives
             '("melpa" . "http://melpa.milkbox.net/packages/") t)
(add-to-list 'package-archives-enable-alist
             '("melpa" "magit" "git-commit-mode" "git-rebase-mode"))

(Otherwise adjust according to the linked instructions).

Then install melpa and magit:

M-x package-install RET melpa RET M-x package-install RET magit RET

Dependencies are installed automatically.

Installing from Git

If you want to contribute to Magit you should run it directly from the Git repository.

First get the repository:

$ git clone git://github.com/magit/magit.git

Then you should byte compile the libraries and generate the documentation, though that is not required.

$ make lisp docs

Unless all dependencies are installed at ../DEPENDENCY you have to tell make where to find them, e.g.:

$ EFLAGS="-L /path/to/git-modes" make lisp docs

If you are using an Emacs version before 24.3, then you also have to install cl-lib and tell make where to find it.

Then add this to you init file:

(add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/magit")
(eval-after-load 'info
  '(progn (info-initialize)
          (add-to-list 'Info-directory-list "/path/to/magit/")))
(require 'magit)

To view available make targets:

$ make help

To update use:

$ git pull
$ make lisp docs

Before creating a pull request always run:

$ make lisp test

You may also build Magit manually:

$ emacs -Q --batch -L . -L /path/to/DEPENCENCY -f batch-byte-compile *.el
$ makeinfo -o magit.info magit.texi
$ install-info --dir=dir magit.info

Installing from Tarball

This is only intended for users who have been doing this sort of thing for years. Installing from a tarball isn't particularly difficult but because we are only providing this as an alternative method we are a bit light on documentation, so it helps to have done this before.

Also most steps have to be repeated every time you want to update.

Because the latest Magit release is very outdated, please consider installing the development version even if tarballs are your thing.

Download and unpack magit-1.2.0.tar.gz. Then build and install as usual:

$ wget https://github.com/downloads/magit/magit/magit-1.2.0.tar.gz
$ tar -xf magit-1.2.0.tar.gz
$ cd magit-1.2.0
$ make
$ sudo make install

This installs the Emacs lisp libraries, as well as the prebuilt documentation from the tarball. You may alternatively build the documentation yourself:

$ make docs
$ sudo make install-docs

By default the Emacs lisp libraries are installed in /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp/magit/. Unless Emacs itself is also installed in /usr/local/ you have to add that directory to the load-path.

(add-to-list 'load-path "/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp/magit")

Then magit can be loaded:

(require 'magit)

Add the above lines to your init file and restart Emacs.

Dependencies

If you install Magit using package.el then dependencies are automatically being taken care of. Otherwise you have to track down dependencies and install them manually.

• cl-lib is a new library in Emacs 24.3. Like the old cl it provides various Common Lisp forms, but differs in that symbols are prefixed with cl-. A forward compatibility cl-lib for older versions of Emacs is available from the GNU Elpa repository. You can install it using package.el or get it here.

• git-commit-mode which is part of the git-modes repository and available as a separate package from Melpa.

• git-rebase-mode which is part of the git-modes repository and available as a separate package from Melpa.

Optional Dependencies

The following libraries build on third-party tools or git subcommands that are not installed by the Git base-package on some distributions:

• magit-stgit.el requires stgit.
• magit-svn.el requires the official Git subcommand svn.
• magit-topgit.el requires topgit.
• magit-wip.el requires git-wip.

Dependencies of Tests

To run tests the following libraries are also required:

• ert is a tool for automated testing. It is part of Emacs starting with version 24.1. You can also obtain an old version from the former development repository.

Development

Magit's canonical source repository is hosted on Github.

Magit was started by Marius Vollmer and is now collectively maintained by the Magit Owners Team. Many more people have contributed.

To report bugs and make feature requests please use the issue tracker and Github pull requests. You may also use Magit's Google group. Before making a pull request please read CONTRIBUTING.md.