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 therefore 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.
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, 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.
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.
Magit is hosted on Github. Please contribute by suggesting features on the issue tracker or by making code contributions using pull requests. Before opening a pull request make sure to read the brief guidelines.
Please also consider supporting development using gittip. Thank you!
Magit was started by Marius Vollmer and is now maintained by Jonas Bernoulli. Other Magitians (former maintainers) are Nicolas Dudebout, Peter J. Weisberg, Phil Jackson, Rémi Vanicat, and Yann Hodique.
Many more people have contributed code and suggested features.
Thanks to all of you, may (the history of) the source be with you!
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. Among other things using package.el
is recommended because that automatically takes care of installing
dependencies.
Magit is available from both of the two popular Elpa repositories, Marmalade (stable releases) and Melpa (snapshots).
If you have already used Melpa to install some other package then all you have to do is:
M-x package-install RET magit RET
This installs Magit as well as all of its dependencies and makes them available in the current and future Emacs sessions.
If this is the first time you are using Melpa, then you have to
configure package.el once.
(require 'package)
(add-to-list 'package-archives
'("melpa" . "http://melpa.milkbox.net/packages/") t)Then evaluate these forms, update the package cache, and install Magit as above. To update the cache use:
M-x package-refresh-contents RET
You might also want to have a look at the more detailed
instructions provided by the Melpa project. Among
other things it explains how to install only some packages from Melpa
and others from Marmalade, and how to use package.el with older
versions of Emacs.
For the time being we recommend that you install the development version available from Melpa, because the latest Magit release (which is what you get from Marmalade) is very outdated. If you are using the development version of Emacs, then you have to do so, because it contains an incompatible change that breaks the last Magit release.
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.gitThen you should byte compile the libraries and generate the documentation, though that is not required:
$ make lisp docsUnless 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 docsThen add this to you init file:
(add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/git-modes")
(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)If you are using an Emacs version before 24.3, then you also have to
install cl-lib and tell make as well as Emacs where to find it.
To view available make targets use:
$ make helpTo update use:
$ git pull
$ make lisp docsBefore creating a pull request always run:
$ make lisp testYou 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.infoThis 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 installThis 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-docsBy 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.
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-libis a new library in Emacs 24.3. Like the oldclit provides various Common Lisp forms, but differs in that symbols are prefixed withcl-. A forward compatibilitycl-libfor older versions of Emacs is available from the GNU Elpa repository. You can install it usingpackage.elor get it here. -
git-commit-modewhich is part of the git-modes repository and available as a separate package from Melpa. -
git-rebase-modewhich is part of the git-modes repository and available as a separate package from Melpa.
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.elrequiresstgit.magit-svn.elrequires the official Git subcommandsvn.magit-topgit.elrequirestopgit.magit-wip.elrequiresgit-wip.
To run tests the following libraries are also required:
ertis 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.