Adding Remote Shortcuts to Git

If you're like me, chances are you're a Git user that uses a small set of hosts for repositories very frequently. The example I'll use here is GitHub.

To clone another user's repository, you end up typing out something like this:

git clone https://github.com/miyagawa/cpanminus.git # If you're a Perl programmer and you're not using cpanm, you *really* should be!

If you want to clone one of your one repositories, you end up with something like this:

git clone git@github.com:hoelzro/linotify.git

Now, that isn't that much typing, but there's got to be a shorter way! Wouldn't it be nice if I could just type this?

git clone github:miyagawa/cpanminus

Or this?

git clone hoelzro:linotify

Well, it turns out that with a few changes to your .gitconfig, you can!

You can add a URL section to your gitconfig, with an insteadOf attribute that describes the prefix you'd like to use. Here's how the previous two examples look in my .gitconfig:

[url "git@github.com:hoelzro/"]
    insteadOf = hoelzro:
[url "https://github.com/"]
    insteadOf = github:

Rinse and repeat for your various sources!