Provided by: git-cola_4.16.1-1_all 
NAME
git-cola - The highly caffeinated Git GUI
SYNOPSIS
git cola [options] [sub-command]
DESCRIPTION
Git Cola is a sleek and powerful Git GUI.
OPTIONS
--amend
Start git cola in amend mode.
--prompt
Prompt for a Git repository. Defaults to the current directory.
-r, --repo <path>
Open the Git repository at <path>. Defaults to the current directory.
-s, --status-filter <filter>
Apply the path filter to the status widget.
--version
Print the git cola version and exit.
-h, --help
Show usage and optional arguments.
--help-commands
Show available sub-commands.
SUB-COMMANDS
Run git cola --help-commands to list all sub-commands.
The following sub-commands can be launched directly from the command-line. For example, git cola diff
will launch the diff sub-command.
am
Apply patches. This sub-command is named after the git am command. git cola am is an entry point for the
File > Patches > Apply Patches... main menu action.
archive
Export tarballs from Git. git cola archive is an entry point for the File > Save As Tarball/Zip... main
menu action.
branch
Create branches. git cola branch is an entry point for the Branch > Create... main menu action.
browse
Browse tracked files. git cola browse is an entry point for the View > File Browser... main menu action.
config
Configure settings. git cola config is an entry point for the File > Preferences main menu action.
dag
Start the git dag Git history browser. git cola dag is an entry point for the View > DAG... main menu
action and can also be launched as git dag command.
diff
Diff changed files. git cola diff is an entry point for the Diff > Expression... main menu action.
fetch
Fetch history from remote repositories. git cola fetch is an entry point for the Actions > Fetch... main
menu action.
grep
Use git grep to search for content. git cola grep is an entry point for the Actions > Grep main menu
action.
merge
Merge branches. git cola merge is an entry point for the Actions > Merge... main menu action.
open
Launch the "Quick Open" dialog to open bookmarked and recently-opened repositories.
pull
Fetch and merge remote branches. git cola pull is an entry point for the Actions > Pull... main menu
action.
push
Push branches to remotes. git cola push is an entry point for the Actions > Push... main menu action.
rebase
Start an interactive rebase. git cola rebase is an entry point for the Rebase > Start Interactive
Rebase... main menu action.
remote
Create and edit remotes. git cola remote is an entry point for the File > Edit Remotes... main menu
action.
search
Search for commits. git cola search is an entry point for the Actions > Search... main menu action.
stash
Stash uncommitted modifications. git cola stash is an entry point for the Actions > Stash... main menu
action.
tag
Create tags. git cola tag is an entry point for the Actions > Create Tag... main menu action.
version
Print the Git Cola version. git cola version displays has options for printing the current version in
different formats. Version details about Git Cola and its dependencies can also be found in the Help >
About dialog's Version tab.
CONFIGURE YOUR EDITOR
The editor used by Ctrl-e is configured from the Preferences screen.
The following environment variables are consulted when no editor is configured. If defined, the first of
these variables is used:
• GIT_VISUAL
• VISUAL
• GIT_EDITOR
• EDITOR
The *VISUAL variables are consulted before the *EDITOR variables so that you can configure a graphical
editor independently of the editor used by the Git CLI.
Pro Tip: Configuring your editor to gvim -f -p will open multiple tabs when editing files. gvim -f -o
uses splits.
git cola is {vim, emacs, textpad, notepad++}-aware. When you select a line in the diff or grep screens
and press any of Enter, Ctrl-e, or the Edit button, you are taken to that exact line.
The editor preference is saved in the gui.editor variable using git config <https://git-scm.com/docs/
git-config>.
The following are some recommend editor configurations.
• Neovim + Neovim-Qt
git config --global core.editor nvim
git config --global gui.editor 'nvim-qt --nofork'
• Vim + gvim
git config --global core.editor vim
git config --global gui.editor 'gvim -f'
• Sublime Text
git config --global gui.editor 'subl --wait'
KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS
git cola has many useful keyboard shortcuts.
Many of git cola's editors understand vim-style hotkeys, e.g. {h,j,k,l} for navigating in the diff,
status, grep, and file browser widgets.
{d,u} move down/up one half page at a time (similar to vim's ctrl-{d,u}). The space and shift-space
hotkeys are mapped to the same operations.
Shift-{j,k,d,u,f,b,page-up,page-down,left,right,up,down} can be be used in the diff editor to select
lines while navigating.
s is a useful hotkey in the diff editor. It stages/unstages the current selection when a selection is
present. When nothing is selected, the diff hunk at the current text cursor position is staged. This
makes it very easy to review changes by selecting good hunks with s while navigating down and over hunks
that are not going to be staged.
Ctrl-u in the diff editor reverts unstaged edits, and respects the selection. This is useful for
selectively reverted edits from the worktree. This same hotkey reverts the entire file when used from
the status tool.
Ctrl-s in the diff editor and status tools stages/unstages the entire file.
You can see the available shortcuts by pressing pressing the ? key, choosing Help > Keyboard shortcuts
from the main menu, or by consulting the git cola keyboard shortcuts reference <https://git-cola.github
.io/share/doc/git-cola/hotkeys.html>.
TOOLS
The git cola interface is composed of various cooperating tools. Double-clicking a tool opens it in its
own subwindow. Dragging it around moves and places it within the main window.
Tools can be hidden and rearranged however you like. git cola carefully remembers your window layout and
restores it the next time it is launched.
The Control-{1, 2, 3, ...} hotkey gives focus to a specific tool. A hidden tool can be re-opened using
the Tools menu or the Shift+Control-{1, 2, 3, ...} shortcut keys.
The Diff editor can be focused with Ctrl-j. The Status tool can be focused with Ctrl-k. The Commit tool
can be focused with Ctrl-l.
STATUS
The Status tool provides a visual analog to the git status <https://git-scm.com/docs/git-status> command.
Status displays files that are modified relative to the staging area, staged for the next commit,
unmerged files from an in-progress merge, and files that are untracked to git.
These are the same categories one sees when running git status <https://git-scm.com/docs/git-status> on
the command line.
You can navigate through the list of files using keyboard arrows as well as the ergonomic and vim-like j
and k shortcut keys.
There are several convenient ways to interact with files in the Status tool.
Selecting a file displays its diff in the Diff viewer. Double-clicking a file stages its contents, as
does the Ctrl-s shortcut key.
Ctrl-e opens selected files in the configured editor, and Ctrl-d opens selected files using git difftool
<https://git-scm.com/docs/git-difftool>
Additional actions can be performed using the right-click context menu.
Drag and Drop
Files can be dragged from the Status tool onto other applications.
Some terminals will treat a drag with multiple files by separating them with newlines, which is less
amenable for pasting command-line arguments.
To avoid this issue, hold down Alt / Option when dragging from the Status tool. The drag and drop
payload will no longer contain local file URLs -- it will contain plain text that is amenable for use on
a command-line.
Note: if drag and drop is not working and you are on Wayland then you may need to export
QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland in your environment.
Actions
Clicking the Staged folder shows a diffstat for the index.
Clicking the Modified folder shows a diffstat for the worktree.
Clicking individual files sends diffs to the Diff Display.
Double-clicking individual files adds and removes their content from the index.
Various actions are available through the right-click context menu. Different actions are available
depending a file's status.
Stage Selected
Add to the staging area using git add <https://git-scm.com/docs/git-add> Marks unmerged files as
resolved.
Launch Editor
Launches the configured visual text editor
Launch Difftool
Visualize changes using git difftool.
Revert Unstaged Edits
Reverts unstaged content by checking out selected paths from the index/staging area
Revert Uncommitted Edits
Throws away uncommitted edits
Unstage Selected
Remove from the index/staging area with git reset <https://git-scm.com/docs/git-reset>
Launch Merge Tool
Resolve conflicts using git mergetool <https://git-scm.com/docs/git-mergetool>.
Delete File(s)
Delete untracked files from the filesystem.
Add to .gitignore
Adds untracked files to to the .gitignore file.
DIFF
The diff viewer/editor displays diffs for selected files. Additions are shown in green and removals are
displayed in light red. Extraneous whitespace is shown with a pure-red background.
Right-clicking in the diff provides access to additional actions that use either the cursor location or
text selection.
The "Copy Diff" action at Alt + Shift + C copies the selected lines to the clipboard. The +, - and `` ``
diff line prefixes are stripped from each line when copying diffs using the "Copy Diff" action.
Staging content for commit
The @@ patterns denote a new diff hunk. Selecting lines of diff and using the Stage Selected Lines
command will stage just the selected lines. Clicking within a diff hunk and selecting Stage Diff Hunk
stages the entire patch diff hunk.
The corresponding opposite commands can be performed on staged files as well, e.g. staged content can be
selectively removed from the index when we are viewing diffs for staged content.
Diff Against Commit (Diff Mode)
Diff Mode allows you to selectively unstage and revert edits from arbitrary commits so that you can bring
these edits back into your worktree.
You can use the diff editor to unstage edits against arbitrary commits by using the Diff > Against
Commit... (Diff Mode) menu action.
You can exit Diff Mode by clicking on the red circle-slash icon on the Status widget, by using the Diff >
Exit Diff mode menu action, or by clicking in an empty area in the Status tool.
COMMIT MESSAGE EDITOR
The commit message editor is a simple text widget for entering commit messages.
You can navigate between the Subject and Extended description... fields using the keyboard arrow keys.
Pressing enter when inside the Subject field jumps down to the extended description field.
The Options button menu to the left of the subject field provides access to the additional actions.
The Ctrl+i keyboard shortcut adds a standard "Signed-off-by: " line, and Ctrl+Enter creates a new commit
using the commit message and staged content.
Sign Off
The Sign Off button adds a sign-off to the bottom of the commit message:
Signed-off-by: A. U. Thor <a.u.thor@example.com>
Invoking this action is equivalent to passing the -s option to git commit <https://git-scm.com/docs/
git-commit>.
Signing-off on commits is a common practice in projects that use Developer Certificate of Origin
<https://developercertificate.org/> attestations in their contribution process.
Commit
The commit button runs git commit <https://git-scm.com/docs/git-commit>. The contents of the commit
message editor is provided as the commit message.
Only staged files are included in the commit -- this is the same behavior as running git commit on the
command-line.
Line and Column Display
The current line and column number is displayed by the editor. E.g. a 5,0 display means that the cursor
is located at line five, column zero.
The display changes colors when lines get too long. Yellow indicates the safe boundary for sending
patches to a mailing list while keeping space for inline reply markers.
Orange indicates that the line is starting to run a bit long and should break soon.
Red indicates that the line is running up against the standard 80-column limit for commit messages.
Keeping commit messages less than 76-characters wide is encouraged. git log <https://git-scm.com/docs/
git-log> is a great tool but long lines mess up its formatting for everyone else, so please be mindful
when writing commit messages.
Amend Last Commit
Clicking on Amend Last Commit makes git cola amend the previous commit instead of creating a new one.
git cola loads the previous commit message into the commit message editor when this option is selected.
The Status tool will display all of the changes for the amended commit.
Create Signed Commit
Tell git commit and git merge to sign commits using GPG.
Using this option is equivalent to passing the --gpg-sign option to git commit <https://git-scm.com/docs/
git-commit> and git merge <https://git-scm.com/docs/git-merge>.
This option's default value can be configured using the cola.signcommits configuration variable.
Prepare Commit Message
The Commit > Prepare Commit Message action or Ctrl-Shift-Return keyboard shortcut runs the
cola-prepare-commit-msg hook if it is available in .git/hooks/. This is a git cola-specific hook that
takes the same parameters as Git's prepare-commit-msg hook <https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/
Customizing-Git-Git-Hooks>
The hook is passed the path to .git/GIT_COLA_MSG as the first argument and the hook is expected to write
an updated commit message to specified path. After running this action, the commit message editor is
updated with the new commit message.
To override the default path to this hook set the cola.prepareCommitMessageHook git config variable to
the path to the hook script. This is useful if you would like to use a common hook across all
repositories.
Set Commit Date
The tool menu's "Set Commit Date" action displays a dialog that lets you set the commit time for the next
commit. Once enabled, the checkbox next to the menu action will be checked.
The commit date option is disabled once a commit is performed.
Set Commit Author
The tool menu's "Set Commit Author" action displays a dialog that lets you set the commit author for the
next commit. Once enabled, the checkbox next to the menu action will be checked.
This setting persists across commits. Clear the tool menu's checkbox to disable the action.
BRANCHES
The Branches tool provides a visual tree to navigate branches. The tree has three main sections: Local
Branches, Remote Branches and Tags. Branches are grouped by their name divided by the character /. For
example, in a repo with the following list of branches:
branch/doe
branch/feature/foo
branch/feature/bar
The branches widget will display the following hierarchy:
branch
- doe
+ feature
- bar
- foo
The current branch is decorated with a star icon. If the current branch has commits ahead or behind the
remote then an up or down arrow will be displayed alongside a number showing the number of commits.
Actions
Various actions are available through the right-click context menu. Different actions are available
depending on the selected branch's status.
Checkout
The checkout action runs git checkout [<branchname>] <https://git-scm.com/docs/git-checkout>.
Merge into current branch
The merge action runs git merge --no-commit [<branchname>] <https://git-scm.com/docs/git-merge>.
Pull
The pull action runs git pull --no-ff [<remote>] [<branchname>] <https://git-scm.com/docs/git-pull>.
Push
The push action runs git push [<remote>] [<branchname>] <https://git-scm.com/docs/git-push>.
Rename Branch
The rename branch action runs git branch -M [<branchname>] <https://git-scm.com/docs/git-push>.
Delete Branch
The delete branch branch action runs git branch -D [<branchname>] <https://git-scm.com/docs/git-branch>.
Delete Remote Branch
The remote branch action runs git push --delete [<remote>] [<branchname>] <https://git-scm.com/docs/
git-push>.
APPLY PATCHES
Use the File > Apply Patches menu item to begin applying patches.
Dragging and dropping patches onto the git cola interface adds the patches to the list of patches to
apply using git am <https://git-scm.com/docs/git-am>.
You can drag either a set of patches or a directory containing patches. Patches can be sorted using in
the interface and are applied in the same order as is listed in the list.
When a directory is dropped git cola walks the directory tree in search of patches. git cola sorts the
list of patches after they have all been found. This allows you to control the order in which patches
are applied by placing patch sets into alphanumerically-sorted directories.
STASH
Use the git cola stash sub-command or the Actions > Stash... menu action to open the Stash tool.
Stashing is a quick way of removing changes from your worktree so that you can restore the changes later.
You can learn about the use cases for stashes in the git stash documentation <https://git-scm.com/docs/
git-stash#_description>.
The list on the left displays all of your saved stashes.
Selecting a stash from the list allows you to Rename, Apply, Pop, or Drop the content from the selected
stash.
The Save button saves uncommitted content from your worktree to a new stash.
The content to stash is controlled by the Keep Index and Save Index options. By default, all uncommitted
changes, including staged content, will be saved to the stash and removed from your working copy.
Options
• Keep Index: Stash everything that has not been staged. Only content in the Modified state will be
saved to the stash. Staged content will not be stashed.
• Save Index: Only stash the content that has been staged. Only content in the Staged state will be
saved to the stash. Modified content will not be stashed.
WORKFLOW FAQ
• How do I stash some but not all modified files / lines?
There are two ways of stashing a subset of changes.
You can either Stage the content you want to keep un-stashed, or you can Stage the content that you
want to stash away.
• Method 1: Stage the content that you want to keep.
This method is analogous to the git stash --keep-index option.
1. Stage the content that you want to keep using the Diff and Status tools.
2. Launch the Stash tool.
3. Enable the Keep Index option and Save the stash.
Modified changes will be stashed away. Staged changes will remain in your worktree.
• Method 2: Stage the content that you want to stash.
This workflow is unique to Git Cola. There is currently no equivalent Git builtin command for
stashing the staging area.
1. Stage the content that you want to stash using the Diff and Status tools.
2. Launch the Stash tool.
3. Enable the Stash Index` option and Save the stash.
Staged changes will be stashed away. Modified changes will remain in your worktree.
CUSTOM WINDOW SETTINGS
git cola remembers modifications to the layout and arrangement of tools within the git cola interface.
Changes are saved and restored at application shutdown/startup.
git cola can be configured to not save custom layouts by disabling the Save Window Settings option in the
git cola preferences.
You can save your current layout configuration to *.layout files using the View > Layouts > Save Layout
menu action.
You can load arbitrary layout files using the View > Layouts > Load Layout menu action.
By default, layouts are saved to the ~/.config/git-cola/layouts directory. Layouts saved to this
directory will appear in the View > Layouts menu for quick loading and switching of layouts.
DARK MODE AND WINDOW MANAGER THEMES
Git Cola contains a default theme which follows the current Qt style and a handful of built-in color
themes. See cola.theme for more details.
To use icons appropriate for a dark application theme, configure git config --global cola.icontheme dark
to use the dark icon theme. See cola.icontheme for more details.
On macOS, using the default theme will automatically inherit "Dark Mode" color themes when configured via
System Preferences. You will need to configure the dark icon theme as noted above when dark mode is
enabled.
On Linux, you may want Qt to follow the Window manager theme by configuring it to do so using the qt5ct
Qt5 configuration tool. Install qt5ct on Debian/Ubuntu systems to make this work.:
sudo apt install qt5ct
Once installed, update your ~/.bash_profile to activate qt5ct:
# Use the style configured using the qt5ct tool
export QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=qt5ct
This only work with the default theme. The other themes replace the color palette with theme-specific
colors.
Some systems may require that you override QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE in order to use a dark theme or to better
interact with the Desktop environment. Some systems provide a theme that you can install:
sudo apt-get install adwaita-qt
You can activate the theme using the following environment variable:
# Override the default theme to adwaita-dark
export QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE=adwaita-dark
QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE may already be set in your Desktop Environment, so check that variable for reference if
you get unexpected hangs when launching git-cola or when the default theme does not follow the desktop's
theme on Linux.
If you don't want to set this variable globally then you can set it when launching cola from the
command-line:
QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE=adwaita-dark git cola
The following is a user-contributed custom git-cola.desktop file that can be used to launch Git Cola with
these settings preset for you:
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Git Cola (dark)
Comment=The highly caffeinated Git GUI
TryExec=git-cola
Exec=env QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE=adwaita-dark git-cola --prompt --icon-theme dark
Icon=git-cola
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Development;RevisionControl;
X-KDE-SubstituteUID=false
You may also want to customize the diff colors when using a dark theme:
git config --global cola.color.add 86c19f
git config --global cola.color.remove c07067
Please see #760 <https://github.com/git-cola/git-cola/issues/760> for more details.
Custom Themes
To create your own custom theme for Git Cola just create a QSS file and put it in ~/.config/themes/. You
can add as many files as you want. Each file will become an option in Menu > File > Preferences >
Appearance > GUI theme.
Some examples can be found here Qt Style Sheets Examples <https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/stylesheet-examples
.html>.
CONFIGURATION VARIABLES
These variables can be set using git config or from the settings.
cola.aspell.enabled
Set to true to enable support for aspell spellcheck dictionaries. When false, spellcheck dictionaries
are read from /usr/share/dict/words by default. When true Git Cola will run aspell dump master
--lang=$lang for each of the installed languages to gather words. Defaults to false.
cola.aspell.lang
Configure the language names that are queried using aspell. For example, git config --global --add
cola.aspell.lang en_US will make it so that only the en_US language is used.
This is a multi-valued configuration value. git config --global --add cola.aspell.lang $lang can be run
once for each language to specify multiple languages to use.
When unset, all of the two-letter language names from the output of aspell dicts will be used.
cola.autodetectproxy
Set to false to disable auto-configuration of HTTP proxy settings based on the configured Gnome and KDE
Desktop Environment proxy settings. The core Git http.proxy configuration overrides this value.
Defaults to true.
cola.autocompletepaths
Set to false to disable auto-completion of filenames in completion widgets. This can speed up operations
when working in large repositories. Defaults to true.
cola.autoloadCommitTemplate
Set to true to automatically load the commit template in the commit message editor If the commit.template
variable has not been configured, raise the corresponding error. Defaults to false.
cola.blameviewer
The command used to blame files. Defaults to git gui blame.
cola.blockcursor
Whether to use a "block" cursor in diff editors. The block cursor is easier to see compared to a line
cursor. Set to false to use a thin "line" cursor. Defaults to true.
cola.browserdockable
Whether to create a dock widget with the Browser tool. Defaults to false to speedup startup time.
cola.checkconflicts
Inspect unmerged files for conflict markers before staging them. This feature helps prevent accidental
staging of unresolved merge conflicts. Defaults to true.
cola.defaultrepo
git cola, when run outside of a Git repository, prompts the user for a repository. Set cola.defaultrepo
to the path of a Git repository to make git cola attempt to use that repository before falling back to
prompting the user for a repository.
cola.dictionary
Specifies an additional dictionary for git cola to use in its spell checker. This should be configured
to the path of a newline-separated list of words.
By default, git cola searches for dict/words and dict/propernames dictionary files in ~/.local/share and
$XDG_DATA_DIRS.
If $XDG_DATA_DIRS is undefined or set to an empty value then /usr/local/share and /usr/share are searched
for dictionary files.
Dictionary files are newline-separated and contain one word per line. Dictionary files must be UTF-8
encoded.
If you have multiple dictionaries that you would like git cola to use then you can specify multiple
dictionaries using git config --global --add. cola.dictionary is a configuration value that can contain
multiple values.
git config --global --add cola.dictionary /path/to/dictionary1
git config --global --add cola.dictionary /path/to/dictionary2
cola.enablepopups
Actions such as "Fetch", "Push", "Pull", "Sync" and "Sync Out" display desktop notifications on Linux
when either the notify2 or notifypy modules are installed. The message are logged to the Console
otherwise.
Messages are displayed using popup dialogs when cola.enablepopups is set to true. Defaults to false.
cola.expandtab
Expand tabs into spaces in the commit message editor. When set to true, git cola will insert a
configurable number of spaces when tab is pressed. The number of spaces is determined by cola.tabwidth.
Defaults to false.
cola.gravatar
Use the gravatar.com service to lookup icons for author emails. Gravatar icons work by sending an MD5
hash of an author's email to gravatar.com when requesting an icon. Warning: this feature can leak
information. Network requests to gravatar.com are disabled when set to false. Defaults to true.
cola.fileattributes
Enables per-file gitattributes encoding and binary file support. This tells git cola to honor the
configured encoding when displaying and applying diffs.
A .gitattributes file can set the binary attribute in order to force specific untracked paths to be
treated as binary files when diffing. Binary files are displayed using a hex-dump display.
# Treat *.exr files as binary files.
*.exr binary
cola.fontdiff
Specifies the font to use for git cola's diff display.
cola.fontsize
Specifies the font size that is used for the Status, Submodules, Branches, Recent, and Favorites widgets.
cola.hidpi
Specifies the High DPI displays scale factor. Set 0 to automatically scaled. Setting value between 0 and
1 is undefined. This option requires at least Qt 5.6 to work. See Qt QT_SCALE_FACTOR documentation
<https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/highdpi.html> for more information.
cola.icontheme
Specifies the icon themes to use throughout git cola. The theme specified must be the name of the
subdirectory containing the icons, which in turn must be placed in the inside the main "icons" directory
in git cola's installation prefix.
If unset, or set either "light" or "default", then the default style will be used. If set to "dark" then
the built-in "dark" icon theme, which is suitable for a dark window manager theme, will be used.
If set to an absolute directory path then icons in that directory will be used. This value can be set to
multiple values using, git config --add cola.icontheme $theme.
This setting can be overridden by the GIT_COLA_ICON_THEME environment variable, which can specify
multiple themes using a colon-separated value.
The icon theme can also be specified by passing --icon-theme=<theme> on the command line, once for each
icon theme, in the order that they should be searched. This can be used to override a subset of the
icons, and fallback to the built-in icons for the remainder.
cola.imagediff.[extension]
Enable image diffs for the specified file extension. For example, configuring git config --global
cola.imagediff.svg false will disable use of the visual image diff for .svg files in all repos until is
is explicitly toggled on. Defaults to true.
cola.inotify
Set to false to disable file system change monitoring. Defaults to true, but also requires either Linux
with inotify support or Windows with pywin32 installed for file system change monitoring to actually
function.
cola.refreshonfocus
Set to true to automatically refresh when git cola gains focus. Defaults to false because this can cause
a pause whenever switching to git cola from another application.
cola.linebreak
Whether to automatically break long lines while editing commit messages. Defaults to true. This setting
is configured using the Preferences dialog, but it can be toggled for one-off usage using the commit
message editor's options sub-menu.
cola.logdate
Set the default date-time mode for the DAG display. This value is passed to git log --date=<format>. See
git log(1) <https://git-scm.com/docs/git-log#Documentation/git-log.txt---dateltformatgt> for more
details.
cola.maxrecent
git cola caps the number of recent repositories to avoid cluttering the start and recent repositories
menu. The maximum number of repositories to remember is controlled by cola.maxrecent and defaults to 8.
cola.mousezoom
Controls whether zooming text using Ctrl + MouseWheel scroll is enabled. Set to false to disable
scrolling with the mouse wheel. Defaults to true.
cola.notifyonpush
Enable desktop notifications when commits are pushed using the "Push" dialog. Set to true to enable
desktop notifications. Defaults to false.
cola.dragencoding
git cola encodes paths dragged from its widgets into utf-16 when adding them to the drag-and-drop mime
data (specifically, the text/x-moz-url entry). utf-16 is used to make gnome-terminal see the right
paths, but other terminals may expect a different encoding. If you are using a terminal that expects a
modern encoding, e.g. terminator, then set this value to utf-8.
cola.readsize
git cola avoids reading large binary untracked files. The maximum size to read is controlled by
cola.readsize and defaults to 2048.
cola.resizebrowsercolumns
git cola will automatically resize the file browser columns as folders are expanded/collapsed when
cola.resizebrowsercolumns is set to true.
cola.patchesdirectory
The default directory to use when exporting patches. Relative paths are treated as being relative to the
current repository. Absolute paths are used as-is. Defaults to patches.
cola.safemode
The "Stage" button in the git cola Actions panel stages all files when it is activated and no files are
selected. This can be problematic if it is accidentally triggered after carefully preparing the index
with staged changes. "Safe Mode" is enabled by setting cola.safemode to true. When enabled, git cola
will do nothing when "Stage" is activated without a selection. Defaults to false.
cola.savewindowsettings
git cola will remember its window settings when set to true. Window settings and X11 sessions are saved
in $HOME/.config/git-cola.
cola.showpath
git cola displays the absolute path of the repository in the window title. This can be disabled by
setting cola.showpath to false. Defaults to true.
cola.signcommits
git cola will sign commits by default when set true. Defaults to false. See the section below on setting
up GPG for more details.
cola.startupmode
Control how the list of repositories is displayed in the startup dialog. Set to list to view the list of
repositories as a list, or folder to view the list of repositories as a collection of folder icons.
Defaults to list.
cola.statusindent
Set to true to indent files in the Status widget. Files in the Staged, Modified, etc. categories will be
grouped in a tree-like structure. Defaults to false.
cola.statusshowtotals
Set to true to display files counts in the Status widget's category titles. Defaults to false.
cola.sync
Set to false to disable calling os.fdatasync() / os.fdata() when saving settings. Defaults to true,
which means that these functions are called when windows are closed and their settings are saved.
cola.tabwidth
The number of columns occupied by a tab character. Defaults to 8.
cola.terminal
The command to use when launching commands within a graphical terminal.
cola.terminal defaults to xterm -e when unset. e.g. when opening a shell, git cola will run xterm -e
$SHELL.
git cola has built-in support for xterm, gnome-terminal, konsole. If either gnome-terminal,
xfce4-terminal, or konsole are installed then they will be preferred over xterm when cola.terminal is
unset.
The table below shows the built-in values that are used for the respective terminal. You can force the
use of a specific terminal by configuring cola accordingly.
cola.terminalshellquote
Some terminal require that the command string get passed as a string. For example, xfce4-terminal -e
"git difftool" requires shell quoting, whereas gnome-terminal -- git difftool does not.
You should not need to set this variable for the built-in terminals cola knows about -- it will behave
correctly without configuration. For example, when not configured, cola already knows that
xfce4-terminal requires shell quoting.
This configuration variable is for custom terminals outside of the builtin set. The table below shows
the builtin configuration.
Terminal cola.terminal cola.terminalshellquote
-------- ------------- -----------------------
gnome-terminal "gnome-terminal --" false
konsole "konsole -e" false
xfce4-terminal "xfce4-terminal -e" true
xterm "xterm -e" false
cola.textwidth
The number of columns used for line wrapping. Tabs are counted according to cola.tabwidth.
cola.theme
Specifies the GUI theme to use throughout git cola. The theme specified must be one of the following
values:
• default – default Qt theme, may appear different on various systems
• flat-dark-blue
• flat-dark-green
• flat-dark-grey
• flat-dark-red
• flat-light-blue
• flat-light-green
• flat-light-grey
• flat-light-red
If unset, or set to an invalid value, then the default style will be used. The default theme is generated
by Qt internal engine and should look native but may look noticeably different on different platforms.
The flat themes on the other hand should look similar (but not identical) on various systems.
The GUI theme can also be specified by passing --theme=<name> on the command line.
cola.turbo
Set to true to enable "turbo" mode. "Turbo" mode disables some features that can slow things down when
operating on huge repositories. "Turbo" mode will skip loading Git commit messages, author details,
status information, and commit date details in the File Browser tool. Defaults to false.
cola.color.text
The default diff text color, in hexadecimal #RRGGBB notation. Defaults to "#030303":
git config cola.color.text '#030303'
cola.color.add
The default diff "add" background color, in hexadecimal #RRGGBB notation. Defaults to "#d2ffe4":
git config cola.color.add '#d2ffe4'
cola.color.remove
The default diff "remove" background color, in hexadecimal #RRGGBB notation. Defaults to "#fee0e4":
git config cola.color.remove '#fee0e4'
cola.color.header
The default diff header text color, in hexadecimal #RRGGBB notation. Defaults to "#bbbbbb":
git config cola.color.header '#bbbbbb'
cola.updateindex
Git's index is refreshed during application startup. You can disable this behavior by configuring
cola.updateindex to false. This is useful in some scenarios such as when accessing Git repositories over
a Samba share. If you have this enabled then you can use the ctrl-r "Refresh" action to force the index
to be refreshed instead. Defaults to true.
commit.cleanup
Configure whether commit messages should be stripped of whitespace and comments.
Valid values are strip, whitespace, verbatim, scissors or default.
The default mode uses the whitespace mode when committing through Git Cola and the strip mode when
committing using the git commit command-line.
• strip - Strip leading and trailing empty lines, trailing whitespace, commentary and collapse
consecutive empty lines.
• whitespace - Same as strip except # commentary is not removed. This is the default behavior when
committing through Git Cola.
• verbatim - Do not change the message at all.
• scissors - Same as whitespace except that everything from (and including) the line found below is
truncated, if the message is to be edited. "#" can be customized with core.commentChar:
# ------------------------ >8 ------------------------
Scissor-lines and all following lines are removed.
Changing the mode to whitespace can be useful when you always want to keep lines that begin with comment
character # in your log message, even when committing using the command-line git commit.
On the contrary, if you always want to always strip comments, even when committing through Git Cola, then
configure commit.cleanup to strip.
Please see the git commit cleanup mode documentation <https://git-scm.com/docs/git-commit#Documentation/
git-commit.txt---cleanupltmodegt> for more details.
core.commentChar
Commit messages can contain comments that start with this character. Defaults to #.
Please see the git config documentation <https://git-scm.com/docs/git-config#Documentation/git-config
.txt-corecommentChar> for more details.
core.hooksPath
Hooks are programs you can place in a hooks directory to trigger actions at certain points in git’s
execution. Hooks that don’t have the executable bit set are ignored.
By default the hooks directory is $GIT_DIR/hooks, but that can be changed via the core.hooksPath
configuration variable
The cola-prepare-commit-msg hook functionality and Cola's Git LFS detection honors this configuration.
Please see the git hooks documentation <https://git-scm.com/docs/githooks> for more details.
gui.diffcontext
The number of diff context lines to display.
gui.displayuntracked
git cola avoids showing untracked files when set to false.
gui.editor
The default text editor to use is defined in gui.editor. The config variable overrides the VISUAL
environment variable. Defaults to gvim -f -p.
gui.historybrowser
The history browser to use when visualizing history. Defaults to gitk.
diff.tool
The default diff tool to use.
merge.tool
The default merge tool to use.
user.email
Your email address to be recorded in any newly created commits. Can be overridden by the
'GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL', 'GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL', and 'EMAIL' environment variables.
user.name
Your full name to be recorded in any newly created commits. Can be overridden by the 'GIT_AUTHOR_NAME'
and 'GIT_COMMITTER_NAME' environment variables.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
GIT_COLA_ICON_THEME
When set in the environment, GIT_COLA_ICON_THEME overrides the theme specified in the cola.icontheme
configuration. Read cola.icontheme for more details.
GIT_COLA_SCALE
Important:
GIT_COLA_SCALE should not be used with newer versions of Qt.
Set QT_AUTO_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTOR to 1 and Qt will automatically scale the interface to the correct size
based on the display DPI. This option is also available by setting cola.hidpi configuration.
See the Qt High DPI documentation <https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/highdpi.html> for more details.
git cola can be made to scale its interface for HiDPI displays. When defined, git cola will scale icons,
radio buttons, and checkboxes according to the scale factor. The default value is 1. A good value is 2
for high-resolution displays.
Fonts are not scaled, as their size can already be set in the settings.
GIT_COLA_TRACE
When defined, git cola logs git commands to stdout. When set to full, git cola also logs the exit status
and output. When set to trace, git cola logs to the Console widget.
VISUAL
Specifies the default editor to use. This is ignored when the gui.editor configuration variable is
defined.
LANGUAGE SETTINGS
git cola automatically detects your language and presents some translations when available. This may not
be desired, or you may want git cola to use a specific language.
You can make git cola use an alternative language by creating a ~/.config/git-cola/language file
containing the standard two-letter gettext language code, e.g. "en", "de", "ja", "zh", etc.:
mkdir -p ~/.config/git-cola &&
echo en >~/.config/git-cola/language
Alternatively you may also use LANGUAGE environmental variable to temporarily change git cola's language
just like any other gettext-based program. For example to temporarily change git cola's language to
English:
LANGUAGE=en git cola
To make git cola use the zh_TW translation with zh_HK, zh, and en as a fallback.:
LANGUAGE=zh_TW:zh_HK:zh:en git cola
CUSTOM GUI ACTIONS
git cola allows you to define custom GUI actions by setting git config variables. The "name" of the
command appears in the "Actions" menu.
guitool.<name>.cmd
Specifies the shell command line to execute when the corresponding item of the Tools menu is invoked.
This option is mandatory for every tool. The command is executed from the root of the working directory,
and in the environment it receives the name of the tool as GIT_GUITOOL, the name of the currently
selected file as FILENAME, and the name of the current branch as CUR_BRANCH (if the head is detached,
CUR_BRANCH is empty).
If <name> contains slashes (/) then the leading part of the name, up until the final slash, is treated
like a path of sub-menus under which the actions will be created.
For example, configuring guitool.Commands/Util/echo.cmd creates a Commands menu inside the top-level
Actions menu, a Util menu inside the Commands menu and an echo action inside the Commands sub-menu.
guitool.<name>.background
Run the command in the background (similar to editing and difftool actions). This avoids blocking the
GUI. Setting background to true implies noconsole and norescan.
guitool.<name>.needsfile
Run the tool only if a diff is selected in the GUI. It guarantees that FILENAME is not empty.
guitool.<name>.noconsole
Run the command silently, without creating a window to display its output.
guitool.<name>.norescan
Don’t rescan the working directory for changes after the tool finishes execution.
guitool.<name>.confirm
Show a confirmation dialog before actually running the tool.
guitool.<name>.argprompt
Request a string argument from the user, and pass it to the tool through the ARGS environment variable.
Since requesting an argument implies confirmation, the confirm option has no effect if this is enabled.
If the option is set to true, yes, or 1, the dialog uses a built-in generic prompt; otherwise the exact
value of the variable is used.
guitool.<name>.revprompt
Request a single valid revision from the user, and set the REVISION environment variable. In other
aspects this option is similar to argprompt, and can be used together with it.
guitool.<name>.revunmerged
Show only unmerged branches in the revprompt sub-dialog. This is useful for tools similar to merge or
rebase, but not for things like checkout or reset.
guitool.<name>.title
Specifies the title to use for the prompt dialog. Defaults to the tool name.
guitool.<name>.prompt
Specifies the general prompt string to display at the top of the dialog, before subsections for argprompt
and revprompt. The default value includes the actual command.
guitool.<name>.shortcut
Specifies a keyboard shortcut for the custom tool.
The value must be a valid string understood by the QAction::setShortcut() API. See <https://doc.qt.io/
qt-6/qkeysequence.html#toString> for more details about the supported values.
Avoid creating shortcuts that conflict with existing built-in git cola shortcuts. Creating a conflict
will result in no action when the shortcut is used.
SETTING UP CREDENTIAL HELPERS
Git has robust support for automatically handling credentials.
The recommended approach is to use SSH keys and an SSH agent, but any of the core Git Credentials helpers
will get used automatically by Git Cola.
See <https://git-scm.com/doc/credential-helpers> for more details.
SETTING UP GPG FOR SIGNED COMMITS
When creating signed commits, gpg will attempt to read your password from the terminal from which git
cola was launched. The way to make this work smoothly is to use a GPG agent so that you can avoid
needing to re-enter your password every time you commit.
This also gets you a graphical passphrase prompt instead of getting prompted for your password in the
terminal.
Install gpg-agent and friends
On Mac OS X, you may need to brew install gpg-agent and install the Mac GPG Suite <https://gpgtools.org/
macgpg2/>.
On Linux use your package manager to install gnupg2, gnupg-agent and pinentry-qt, e.g.:
sudo apt-get install gnupg2 gnupg-agent pinentry-qt
On Linux, you should also configure Git so that it uses gpg2 (gnupg2), otherwise you will get errors
mentioning, "unable to open /dev/tty". Set Git's gpg.program to gpg2:
git config --global gpg.program gpg2
Configure gpg-agent and a pin-entry program
On Mac OS X, edit ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf to include the line,:
use-agent
This is typically not needed on Linux, where gpg2 is used, as this is the default value when using gpg2.
Next, edit ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf to contain a pinentry-program line pointing to the pinentry program
for your platform.
The following example ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf shows how to use pinentry-gtk-2 on Linux:
pinentry-program /usr/bin/pinentry-gtk-2
default-cache-ttl 3600
This following example .gnupg/gpg-agent.conf shows how to use MacGPG2's pinentry app on On Mac OS X:
pinentry-program /usr/local/MacGPG2/libexec/pinentry-mac.app/Contents/MacOS/pinentry-mac
default-cache-ttl 3600
enable-ssh-support
use-standard-socket
Once this has been set up then you will need to reload your gpg-agent config:
echo RELOADAGENT | gpg-connect-agent
If you see the following output:
OK
Then the daemon is already running, and you do not need to start it yourself.
If it is not running, eval the output of gpg-agent --daemon in your shell prior to launching git cola.:
eval $(gpg-agent --daemon)
git cola
SHELL COMPLETIONS
Git Cola provides shell completions for zsh and bash. The completion scripts and instructions are
included in Git Cola's contrib directory.
• Shell completion scripts <https://gitlab.com/git-cola/git-cola/-/tree/main/contrib>
• Setup instructions <https://gitlab.com/git-cola/git-cola/-/blob/main/contrib/README.md>
MACOS NOTES
A git-cola.app bundle can be built using garden macos/app. See the garden.yaml file for more details.
Older versions of the git-cola.app may have caused macOS to launch Git Cola using Rosetta even though
Python is arm64 native. This is a macOS / Apple bug.
A stub git-cola-macos binary is now provided in git-cola.app/Contents/MacOS as a workaround to prevent
this behavior.
If you launched an older version of the git-cola.app bundle you may have encountered this macOS bug:
<https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/457171/
shell-script-application-bundle-prompts-for-rosetta-installation>
Per the discussion above, you can clear the buggy cache using this command:
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Delete :"Architectures for arm64":com.justroots.git-cola' \
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices/com.apple.LaunchServices.plist
Reboot after running this command and Git Cola should launch natively without Rosetta.
WINDOWS NOTES
Git Installation
If Git is installed in a custom location, e.g. not installed in C:/Git or Program Files, then the path to
Git must be configured by creating a file in your home directory ~/.config/git-cola/git-bindir that
points to your git installation, e.g.:
C:/Tools/Git/bin
SSH Agents for Key-based Authentication
You may need to setup ssh-agent in order to use SSH key-based authentication on Windows. It has been
reported that starting OpenSSH agent in Windows Services and adding the key using Powershell are
necessary in order to get things working.
Please see the following links for more details.
<https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18683092/how-to-run-ssh-add-on-windows>
Samba
Core Git has issues when operating over a Samba file share. This can lead to .git/index.lock lingering
around and preventing git commands from working correctly.
To avoid these issues, operate on repositories from a local filesystem.
FIPS SECURITY MODE
FIPS Security Mode <https://github.com/python/cpython/issues/53462> is available in newer versions of
Python. These include Python 3.9+ and the patched Python 3.6 used by CentOS8/RHEL8 (and possibly others).
Git Cola uses the hashlib.md5 function and adheres to the FIPS security mode when available. Git Cola
does not use the MD5 value for security purposes. MD5 is used only for the purposes of implementing the
cola/gravatar.py Gravatar client.
LINKS
Git Cola's Git Repository
• Primary repository <https://gitlab.com/git-cola/git-cola/>_.
• Mirror repository <https://github.com/git-cola/git-cola/>_.
Git Cola Homepage
<https://git-cola.gitlab.io/>
Author
David Aguilar and contributors
4.16.1 Nov 19, 2025 GIT-COLA(1)