How do I make git merge's default be --no-ff --no-commit?

Question

Company policy is to use --no-ff for merge commits. I personally like to adjust merge log messages so I use --no-commit. Plus I like to actually compile and test before I let the commit go.

How do I make --no-ff and --no-commit the default for me for all branches?

(and I've learned in the years since asking this, I almost always am happy with the commit, so it is simpler to allow it to commit by default and so long as I amend or otherwise fix things up before doing a push things are all good...)

Answer 1

Put this in $HOME/.gitconfig:

[merge]     ff = no     commit = no 

You can use git-config to do this:

  git config --global merge.commit no   git config --global merge.ff no 

Answer 2

To make --no-ff --no-commit the default merge behavior, set the options to no using:

git config --global merge.ff no git config --global merge.commit no 

However, the problem with this is that git pull = git fetch + git merge. So whenever you pull from the remote server, you'd be creating an ugly merge commit when a simple fast-forward would be warranted. To solve this, set pull.ff to yes:

git config --global pull.ff yes