How do I make git use the editor of my choice for commits?

Question

I would prefer to write my commit messages in Vim, but git is opening them in Emacs.

How do I configure git to always use Vim? Note that I want to do this globally, not just for a single project.

Answer 1

If you want to set the editor only for Git, do either (you don’t need both):

• Set core.editor in your Git config: git config --global core.editor "vim"

OR

• Set the GIT_EDITOR environment variable: export GIT_EDITOR=vim

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If you want to set the editor for Git and also other programs, set the standardized VISUAL and EDITOR environment variables*:

export VISUAL=vim export EDITOR="$VISUAL" 

NOTE: Setting both is not necessarily needed, but some programs may not use the more-correct VISUAL. See VISUAL vs. EDITOR.

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Some editors require a --wait flag, or they will open a blank page. For example:

• Sublime Text (if correctly set up; or use the full path to the executable in place of subl):

  export VISUAL="subl --wait"

• VS Code (after adding the shell command):

  export VISUAL="code --wait"