TIGRC(5)

📦
version 2.6.1 · 12 versions
, in alpine 3.23, alpine 3.24, arch rolling, fedora 43, fedora 44

🎀 TIGRC(5) — the tig configuration file, bestie edition 🎀

so like… this is the manual page for tigrc — the tig configuration file. Yeah. The file where you tell tig how to behave. And honestly? It's giving main character energy for your whole git workflow. 💅

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

okay so here's the whole vibe, in four little lines:

set   variable = value
bind  keymap key action
color area fgcolor bgcolor [attributes]
source path

That's it. That's the whole language. Slay.

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

You can permanently set an option by putting it in the ~/.tigrc file. The file is just a series of commands, one per line. Each line of the file may contain only one command. BUT — and this is the cute part — commands can span multiple lines if each line is terminated by a backslash (\) character. So you can spread out your long-ass config over several lines and it still counts as one command. obsessed.

The hash mark (#) is used as a comment character. All text after the comment character to the end of the line is ignored. So go ahead and annotate your init file like it's your diary. 🫶

Certain options can be manipulated at runtime via the option menu. In addition, options can also be toggled with the :toggle prompt command or by entering the configuration command into the prompt. Live tweaking?? iconic.

In some environments, a user's configuration will be stored in the alternate location $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/tig/config. For brevity, this document will refer only to ~/.tigrc. iykyk.

🌈 GIT CONFIGURATION 🌈

Alternatively to using ~/.tigrc, Tig options can be set by putting them in one of the Git configuration files, which are read by Tig on startup. See git-config(1) for which files to use. Here's the basic syntax for settings, bindings and colors:

[tig] show-changes = true
[tig "color"] cursor = yellow red bold
[tig "bind"] generic = P parent

In addition to tig-specific options, the following Git options are read from the Git configuration:

  • color.* — Colors for the various UI types. Can be configured via the git-colors setting.
  • core.abbrev — The width of the commit ID. See also id-width option.
  • core.editor — The editor command. Can be overridden by setting TIG_EDITOR or GIT_EDITOR.
  • core.worktree — The path to the root of the working tree.
  • gui.encoding — The encoding to use for displaying of file content.
  • i18n.commitencoding — The encoding used for commits. The default is UTF-8.

💅 SET COMMAND 💅

A few selective variables can be configured via the set command. The syntax is:

set variables = value

Use += to append value to a string variable. (Very "add to cart" of it.)

Examples:

set commit-order = topo         # Order commits topologically
set git-colors = no             # Do not read Git's color settings.
set horizontal-scroll = 33%     # Scroll 33% of the view width
set blame-options = -C -C -C    # Blame lines from other files
set log-options += --minimal    # Use minimal diff algorithm

# Wrap branch names with () and tags with <>
set reference-format = (branch) <tag>

# Configure blame view columns using command spanning multiple lines.
set blame-view = \
        date:default \
        author:abbreviated \
        committer:abbreviated \
        file-name:auto \
        id:yes,color \
        line-number:yes,interval=5 text

Or in the Git configuration files:

[tig]
        line-graphics = no      # Disable graphics characters
        tab-size = 8            # Number of spaces per tab

The type of variables is either bool, int, string, or mixed.

Valid bool values

To set a bool variable to true use either "1", "true", or "yes". Any other value will set the variable to false. no in-between, bestie.

Valid int values

A non-negative integer. (so zero is fine, negative is not, we don't do that here 💀)

Valid string values

A string of characters. Optionally, use either ' or " as delimiters.

Valid mixed values

These values are composites of the above types. The valid values are specified in the description. (read the fine print, it's literally in each one ✨)

🌸 Variables 🌸

The following variables can be set:

  • diff-options (string) — A space-separated string of diff options to use in the diff view. git-show(1) is used for formatting and always passes --patch-with-stat. Can control display of commit header metadata, passing option --format. This option overrides any options specified in the TIG_DIFF_OPTS environment variable (described in tig(1)), but is itself overridden by diff flags given on the command line invocation. it's giving hierarchy, periodt.
  • blame-options (string) — A space-separated string of default blame options. Can be used for telling git-blame(1) how to detect the origin of lines. The options are ignored when Tig is started in blame mode and given blame options on the command line.
  • log-options (string) — A space-separated string of default options that should be passed to the git-log(1) command used by the log view. Options can be overridden by command line options. Used internally override custom pretty.format settings that break the log view.
  • main-options (string) — A space-separated string of default options that should be passed to the git-log(1) command used by the main view. Options can be overridden by command line options.
  • reference-format (string) — A space-separated string of format strings used for formatting reference names. Wrap the name of the reference type with the characters you would like to use for formatting, e.g. [tag] and <remote>. If no format is specified for local-tag, the format for tag is used. Similarly, if no format is specified for tracked-remote, the format for remote is used, and if no format is specified for any other reference type, the format for branch is used. Prefix with hide: to not show that reference type, e.g. hide:remote. Supported reference types are:
    • head : The current HEAD.
    • tag : An annotated tag.
    • local-tag : A lightweight tag.
    • remote : A remote.
    • tracked-remote : The remote tracked by current HEAD.
    • replace : A replaced reference.
    • branch : A branch.
    • stash : The stash.
    • note : Notes.
    • prefetch : Refs prefetched by git maintenance.
    • other : Any other reference.
  • line-graphics (mixed) [ascii|default|utf-8|auto|<bool>] — What type of character graphics for line drawing. "auto" means "utf-8" if the locale is UTF-8, "default" otherwise. 🎨
  • truncation-delimiter (mixed) [utf-8|<string>] — A single character to draw where columns are truncated. The default is "~". The special value "utf-8" refers to the character "..." ("Midline Horizontal Ellipsis"). cute little dots fr.
  • horizontal-scroll (mixed) — Interval to scroll horizontally in each step. Can be specified either as the number of columns, e.g. 5, or as a percentage of the view width, e.g. 33%, where the maximum is 100%. For percentages it is always ensured that at least one column is scrolled. The default is to scroll 50% of the view width.
  • git-colors (list) — A space-separated list of "key=value" pairs where the key is a Git color name and the value is a Tig color name, e.g. "branch.current=main-head" and "grep.filename=grep.file". Set to "no" to disable.
  • show-notes (mixed) [<reference>|<bool>] — Whether to show notes for a commit. When set to a note reference the reference is passed to git show --notes=. Notes are enabled by default.
  • show-changes (bool) — Whether to show staged and unstaged changes in the main view.
  • show-untracked (bool) — Whether to show also untracked changes in the main view.
  • vertical-split (mixed) [auto|<bool>] — Whether to split the view horizontally or vertically. "auto" (which is the default) means that it will depend on the window dimensions. When true vertical orientation is used, and false sets the orientation to horizontal.
  • split-view-height (mixed) — The height of the bottom view in a horizontally split display. Can be specified either as the number of rows, e.g. 5, or as a percentage of the view height, e.g. 80%, where the maximum is 100%. It is always ensured that the smaller of the views is at least four rows high. The default is 67%.
  • split-view-width (mixed) — Width of the right-most view in a vertically split display. Can be specified either as the number of column, e.g. 5, or as a percentage of the view width, e.g. 80%, where the maximum is 100%. It is always ensured that the smaller of the views is at least four columns wide. The default is 50%.
  • status-show-untracked-dirs (bool) — Show untracked directories contents in the status view (analog to git ls-files --directory option). On by default.
  • status-show-untracked-files (bool) — Show untracked files in the status view (mirrors Git's status.showUntrackedFiles option). On by default.
  • tab-size (int) — Number of spaces per tab. The default is 8 spaces.
  • diff-context (int) — Number of context lines to show for diffs.
  • word-diff (bool) — Show a word diff. Only plain mode is supported. Off by default.
  • diff-highlight (mixed) — Whether to highlight diffs using Git's diff-highlight program. Defaults to false. When set to true then diff-highlight is used, else the option value is used as the path. When this option is in effect, highlighted regions are governed by color diff-add-highlight and color diff-del-highlight.
  • diff-indicator (bool) — Show +/- signs in the diff view. On by default.
  • ignore-space (mixed) [no|all|some|at-eol|<bool>] — Ignore space changes in diff view. By default no space changes are ignored. Changing this to "all", "some" or "at-eol" is equivalent to passing "--ignore-all-space", "--ignore-space" or "--ignore-space-at-eol" respectively to git diff or git show.
⚠️ Warning: when ignore-space is set to some, all or at-eol, then the status-update and status-revert may fail when updating or reverting chunks containing lines with space changes. Similarly, stage-update-line may fail when updating a line adjacent to a line with space changes. 💀 be careful bestie.
  • commit-order (enum) [auto|default|topo|date|author-date|reverse] — Commit ordering using the default (chronological reverse) order, topological order, date order or reverse order. When set to "auto" (which is the default), topological order is automatically used in the main view when the commit graph is enabled. In repositories with a long commit history it is advised to set this option to "default" to speed up loading of the main view. 🏎️
  • ignore-case (enum) [no|yes|smart-case] — Ignore case in searches. "smart-case" ignores case if the search string doesn't contain any uppercase letters. By default, the search is case sensitive.

…and that's only part 1, bestie. more coming, don't go anywhere 💖

  • mailmap (bool) — bestie, this one reads the canonical name and email addresses for authors and committers straight from .mailmap. Off by default. See git-shortlog(1) for the tea ☕
  • wrap-lines (bool) — wraps long lines. By default, lines are not wrapped. Not compatible with line numbers enabled. so pick your struggle 💅
  • wrap-search (bool) — when you search, it wraps around to top/bottom of the view. On by default. it's giving "loop me back around" 🔄
  • focus-child (bool) — whether to focus the child view when it opens. When disabled, the focus stays in the parent view, which avoids reloads of the child view when you're navigating the parent. True by default. main character energy for the parent view, honestly 👑
  • send-child-enter (bool) — whether to send "enter" key presses to the child view, even if the parent view is active. When disabled, the child view has to be explicitly focused to receive those "enter" key presses. In practice this is only relevant when you set focus-child = no. True by default. literally the "hey bestie, are you listening?" option 🫶
  • editor-line-number (bool) — whether to pass the selected line number to the editor command. The line number is passed as +<line-number> in front of the file name. Example: vim +10 tig.c ✨
  • history-size (int) — size of the persistent ~/.tig_history file when compiled with readline support. Default is 500. Set to 0 to disable. no history, no problems 🎀
  • mouse (bool) — whether to enable mouse support. Off by default since it makes selecting text from the terminal less intuitive. When enabled, hold down Shift (or Option on Mac) to select text. Mouse support requires that ncurses itself support mouse events. 🐭
  • mouse-scroll (int) — interval to scroll up or down using the mouse. The default is 3 lines. Mouse support requires that ncurses itself support mouse events and that you have enabled mouse support in ~/.tigrc with set mouse = true. scroll scroll scroll 💅
  • mouse-wheel-cursor (bool) — whether to prefer moving the cursor to scrolling the view when using the mouse wheel. Off by default. Combines well with set mouse-scroll = 1. Mouse support requires that ncurses itself support mouse events and that you have enabled mouse support in ~/.tigrc with set mouse = true. it's giving precision 🎯
  • pager-autoscroll (bool) — whether to scroll automatically the pager view while loading. Move the cursor out of the last line to stop scrolling and back in to resume. autoscroll bestie, go off 🌊
  • recurse-tree (bool) — whether to show all files recursively in the tree view. 🌳
  • pgrp (bool) — make tig process-group leader when starting and clean all processes when exiting. Off by default. Do not enable this option if you are using a Zsh version affected by zsh-workers/43379. Run xclip with setsid to keep clipboard content after exiting tig. If you are using git-credential-cache helper, set option credentialCache.ignoreSIGHUP. 👑
  • start-on-head (bool) — start with cursor on HEAD commit. periodt 💅
  • refresh-mode (mixed) [manual|auto|after-command|periodic|<bool>] — configures how views are refreshed based on modifications to watched files in the repository. When set to manual, nothing is refreshed automatically. When set to auto, views are refreshed when a modification is detected in another view. When set to after-command, only refresh after returning from an external command. When set to periodic, visible views are refreshed periodically using refresh-interval. 🔄
  • refresh-interval (int) — interval in seconds between view refresh update checks when refresh-mode is set to periodic. ⏱️
  • file-args (args) — command line arguments referring to files. These are filtered using git-rev-parse(1). 📁
  • rev-args (args) — command line arguments referring to revisions. These are filtered using git-rev-parse(1). 🔍

✨ View settings ✨

okay so the view settings define the order and options for the different columns of a view. each view setting expects a space-separated list of column specifications. column specifications start with the column type, and can optionally be followed by a colon (:) and a list of column options. e.g. the following column specification defines an author column displaying the author email and with a fixed width of 20 characters: author:email,width=20. 💖

the first option value in a column specification is always the display option. when no display value is given, yes is assumed. for display options expecting an enumerated value this will automatically resolve to the default enum value. for example, file-name will automatically have its display setting resolve to auto. ✨

specifications can also be given for a single column, for example to override the defaults in the system tigrc file. to override a single column, use the column name as a suffix after the view setting name, e.g. main-view-date will allow to set the date in the main view. 💅

examples:

# Enable both ID and line numbers in the blame view
set blame-view = date:default author:full committer:no file-name:auto \
                 id:yes,color line-number:yes,interval=5 text

# Change grep view to be similar to `git grep` format
set grep-view = file-name:yes line-number:yes,interval=1 text

# Show file sizes as units
set tree-view = line-number:no,interval=5 mode author:full committer:no \
                file-size:units date:default id:no file-name

# Show line numbers for every 10th line in the pager view
set pager-view = line-number:yes,interval=10 text

# Shorthands to change view settings for a previously defined column
set main-view-date = custom
set main-view-date-format = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M"
set blame-view-line-number = no
# Use Git's default commit order, even when the commit graph is enabled.
set commit-order = default

the following list shows which the available view settings and what column types they support:

  • blob-view, diff-view, log-view, pager-view, stage-view — line-number, text
  • blame-view — author, committer, date, file-name, id, line-number, text
  • grep-view — file-name, line-number, text
  • main-view, reflog-view — author, committer, date, commit-title, id, line-number, ref
  • refs-view — author, committer, date, commit-title, id, line-number, ref
  • stash-view — author, date, commit-title, id, line-number
  • status-view — file-name, line-number, status
  • tree-view — author, committer, date, id, file-name, file-size, line-number, mode

supported column types and their respective column options:

author, committer

  • display (mixed) [full|abbreviated|email|email-user|<bool>] — how to display author/committer names. if set to "abbreviated" author/committer initials will be shown. ✨
  • width (int) — fixed width for the column. when set to a value between 1 and 10, the author/committer name will be abbreviated to the author/committer's initials. when set to zero, the width is automatically sized to fit the content. 💅
  • maxwidth (int) — maximum width of the column. permit automatically sizing content, up to this limit. can be specified either as the number of columns, e.g. 15, or as a percentage of the view width, e.g. 20%, where the maximum is 100%. 📏

commit-title

  • graph (mixed) [no|v2|v1] — whether to show the revision graph in the main view on start-up. "v1" refers to the old graph rendering, which is less accurate but faster and thus recommended in large repositories. see also the line-graphics options. 🌈
  • refs (bool) — whether to show references (branches, tags, and remotes) in the main view. can be toggled. 🏷️
  • overflow (bool or int) — whether to highlight text in commit titles exceeding a given width. when set to a boolean, it enables or disables the highlighting using the default width of 50 character. when set to an int, the assigned value is used as the maximum character width. 🚨

date

  • display (mixed) [relative|relative-compact|custom|default|<bool>] — how to display dates. if set to "relative" or "relative-compact" a relative date will be used, e.g. "2 minutes ago" or "2m". if set to "custom", the strftime(3) string format specified in the "format" option is used. 📅
  • use-author (bool) — whether to show author date instead of committer date. 👤
  • local (bool) — if true, use localtime(3) to convert to local timezone. note that relative dates always use local offsets. 🌍
  • format (string) — format string to pass to strftime(3) when custom display mode has been selected. ✍️
  • width (int) — fixed width for the column. when set to zero, the width is automatically sized to fit the content. 📐

file-name

  • display (mixed) [auto|always|<bool>] — when to display file names. if set to "auto" file names are shown only when needed, e.g. when running: tig blame -C <file>. 📄
  • width (int) — width of the column. when set to zero, the width is automatically sized to fit the content. 📏
  • maxwidth (int) — maximum width of the column. permit automatically sizing content, up to this limit. can be specified either as the number of columns, e.g. 15, or as a percentage of the view width, e.g. 20%, where the maximum is 100%. 📐

file-size

  • display (mixed) [default|units|<bool>] — how to display file sizes. when set to "units", sizes are shown using binary prefixes, e.g. 12524 bytes is shown as "12.2K". 💾
  • width (int) — fixed width for the filename column. when set to zero, the width is automatically sized to fit the content. 📏

id

  • display (bool) — whether to show commit IDs in the main view. 🆔
  • width (int) — fixed width for the commit ID column. when unset Tig will use the value of core.abbrev if found. see git-config(1) on how to set core.abbrev. when set to zero the width is automatically sized to fit the content of reflog (e.g. ref/stash@{4}) IDs and otherwise default to 7. 🔢

line-number

  • display (bool) — whether to show line numbers. 🔢
  • interval (int) — interval between line numbers. ⏳
  • width (int) — fixed width for the column. when set to zero, the width is automatically sized to fit the content. 📏

mode

  • display (bool) — whether to show file modes. 🔧
  • width (int) — fixed width for the column. when set to zero, the width is automatically sized to fit the content. 📐

ref

  • display (bool) — whether to show the reference name. 🏷️
  • width (int) — a fixed width for this column. Set it to zero and the width just auto-sizes to fit whatever's in there. ✨
  • maxwidth (int) — the ceiling for this column. Lets the content auto-size, but never past this limit. You can write it as a number of columns, like 15, or as a percentage of the view width, like 20%, where the max is 100%.

status

  • display (mixed) [no|short|long|<bool>] — how to show the status label. That's the whole vibe.

text

  • commit-title-overflow (bool or int) — whether to highlight commit titles that run past a given width in the diff view. Give it a boolean and it just turns the highlighting on or off using the default width of 50 characters. Give it an int and that value becomes the maximum character width.

Okay so all column options can be toggled, bestie. For display options, you use the option name as a prefix, then a dash, then the column name. So :toggle author-display toggles the display option in the author column. For every other kind of option, it's flipped around: the column name comes first, then a dash, then the option name as the suffix. Like :toggle commit-title-graph toggles the graph option in the commit-title column. Or honestly just use the option menu to mess with them, no shame. 💅

🔑 BIND COMMAND 🔑

With bind commands you can map keys to an action that fires when you press them in a given key map. The syntax is:

bind keymap key action

Examples:

# Add keybinding to quickly jump to the next diff chunk in the stage view
bind stage <Enter> :/^@@

# Disable the default mapping for running git-gc
bind generic G none

# User-defined external command to amend the last commit
bind status + !git commit --amend

# User-defined internal command that reloads ~/.tigrc
bind generic S :source ~/.tigrc

# UTF8-encoded characters can be used as key values.
bind generic ø @sh -c "printf '%s' %(commit) | pbcopy"

Or you can do the same thing in the Git configuration files:

[tig "bind"]
        # 'unbind' the default quit key binding
        generic = Q none
        # Cherry-pick current commit onto current branch
        main = C !git cherry-pick %(commit)

Here's the lookup order, and it matters, so listen up: keys get mapped by first searching the keybindings for the current view, then the keybindings for the generic keymap, and last the default keybindings. So view keybindings override generic keybindings, which override the built-in keybindings. Hierarchy, periodt. 👑

Want to clear a keybinding (unbind it) from all keymaps at once? Do it with bind generic key none.

Keybindings at the line-entry prompt are typically governed by the readline library, and those are configured separately over in ~/.inputrc. Check readline(1). Tig respects but does not require an $if tig section in ~/.inputrc.

Keymaps

Valid keymaps are: main, diff, log, reflog, help, pager, status, stage, tree, blob, blame, refs, stash, grep and generic. Use generic to set key mappings in all keymaps (which may still be overridden by a specific view keybinding). Use search to define keys for navigating search results during search.

Key values

Key values should never be quoted. Use either an ASCII or UTF8-encoded character, or one of the following symbolic key names. Symbolic key names are case insensitive and start with < and end with >. Use <Hash> to bind to the # key, since the hash mark is the comment character. Use <LessThan> to bind to the < key.

<Enter>, <Space>, <Backspace>, <Tab>, <Escape> or <Esc>, <Left>, <Right>, <Up>, <Down>, <Insert> or <Ins>, <Delete> or <Del>, <Hash>, <LessThan> or <LT>, <Home>, <End>, <PageUp> or <PgUp>, <PageDown> or <PgDown>, <ScrollBack> or <SBack>, <ScrollFwd> or <SFwd>, <ShiftTab> or <BackTab>, <ShiftLeft>, <ShiftRight>, <ShiftDelete> or <ShiftDel>, <ShiftHome>, <ShiftEnd>, <SingleQuote>, <DoubleQuote>, <F1> ... <F19>

To define key mappings with the Ctrl key, use <Ctrl-key>. And on top of that, key combos made of an initial Escape key followed by a normal key value can be bound using <Esc>key.

Examples:

bind main R             refresh
bind main <Down>        next
bind main <Ctrl-f>      scroll-page-down
bind main <Esc>o        options
bind main <ShiftTab>    parent

Notes

  • Tig reads keystrokes via ncurses and is subject to various limitations. See ncurses(3x) and terminfo(5) (or termcap).
  • Ctrl-m and Ctrl-i cannot be bound as they conflict with Enter and Tab respectively. Sorry bestie, that's just how it is. 🙈
  • Case differences cannot be distinguished in control sequences such as Ctrl-f and Ctrl-F.
  • Ctrl-<Space> is typically translated to Ctrl-@, which is available for binding.
  • Only some subset of special symbolic keys such as <ShiftTab> will be available in any given terminal emulator.
  • Ctrl-z is automatically used for process control and will suspend Tig and open a subshell (use fg to reenter Tig).

Actions

Actions are either specified as user-defined commands (external or internal) or using action names as described in the following sections.

External user-defined command

These actions start with one or more of the following option flags, followed by the command that should be executed.

  • ! — Run the command in the foreground with output shown.
  • @ — Run the command in the background with no output.
  • + — Run the command synchronously, and echo the first line of output to the status bar.
  • ? — Prompt the user before executing the command.
  • < — Exit Tig after executing the command.
  • > — Re-open Tig instantly in the last displayed view after executing the command.

Unless otherwise specified, commands are run in the foreground with their console output shown (as if ! was specified). When multiple command options are specified their behavior is combined — e.g. "?<git commit" will prompt the user whether to execute the command and will exit Tig after completion.

Heads up: if you want to use pipes or redirection in your commands, then you must run them in a subshell, i.e. embed your commands in sh -c '<commands>'.

Browsing state variables

User-defined commands can optionally refer to Tig's internal state using the following variable names, which are substituted before commands are run:

  • %(head) — The currently viewed head ID. Defaults to HEAD
  • %(commit) — The currently selected commit ID.
  • %(blob) — The currently selected blob ID.
  • %(branch) — The currently selected branch name.
  • %(remote) — The currently selected remote name. For remote branches %(branch) will contain the branch name.
  • %(tag) — The currently selected tag name.
  • %(refname) — The currently selected reference name including the remote name for remote branches.
  • %(stash) — The currently selected stash name.
  • %(directory) — The current directory path in the tree view or "." if undefined.
  • %(file) — The currently selected file.
  • %(file_old) — The old filename of the currently selected file.
  • %(lineno) — The currently selected line number. Defaults to 0.
  • %(lineno_old) — The currently selected line number, before the diff was applied. Defaults to 0.
  • %(status) — The staging status of the currently selected line.
  • %(ref) — The reference given to blame or HEAD if undefined.
  • %(revargs) — The revision arguments passed on the command line.
  • %(fileargs) — The file arguments passed on the command line.
  • %(cmdlineargs) — All other options passed on the command line.
  • %(diffargs) — Options from diff-options or TIG_DIFF_OPTS used by the diff and stage view.
  • %(blameargs) — Options from blame-options used by the blame view.
  • %(logargs) — Options from log-options used by the log view.
  • %(mainargs) — Options from main-options used by the main view.
  • %(prompt) — Prompt for the argument value. Optionally specify a custom prompt using "%(prompt Enter branch name: )"
  • %(text) — The text column of the currently selected line.
  • %(repo:head) — The name of the checked out branch, e.g. master
  • %(repo:head-id) — The commit ID of the checked out branch.
  • %(repo:remote) — The remote name associated with the checked out branch, e.g. origin.
  • %(repo:upstream) — The upstream branch associated with the checked out branch, e.g. origin/master.
  • %(repo:cdup) — The path to change directory to the repository root, e.g. ../
  • %(repo:prefix) — the path prefix of the current work directory, e.g. subdir/.
  • %(repo:git-dir) — the path to the Git directory, e.g. /src/repo/.git.
  • %(repo:worktree) — the worktree path, if it's defined.
  • %(repo:is-inside-work-tree) — whether Tig is running inside a work tree, either true or false.

Examples, bestie, take notes 📝:

# Save the current commit as a patch file when the user selects a commit
# in the main view and presses 'S'.
bind main S !git format-patch -1 %(commit)

# Create and checkout a new branch; specify custom prompt
bind main B ?git checkout -b "%(prompt Enter new branch name: )"

# Show commit statistics for the author under the cursor
bind main U +sh -c 'git --no-pager shortlog -s --author="$(git show -s --format=%aE %(commit))" </dev/tty'

✨ Advanced shell-like commands ✨

Okay so if your command needs the fancy dynamic stuff — subshells, expansion of environment variables, process control, all that main character energy — you can pull it off by running it through a shell command. 🐚

Example 1. Configure a binding to copy the current commit ID to the clipboard.

bind generic I @sh -c "echo -n %(commit) | xclip -selection c"

Or, lowkey iconic alternative, by using a combination of Git aliases and Tig external commands. The following example entries can be put in either the .gitconfig or .git/config file:

Example 2. Git configuration which binds Tig keys to Git command aliases.

[alias]
    gitk-bg = !"gitk HEAD --not $(git rev-parse --remotes) &"
    publish = !"for i in origin public; do git push $i; done"
[tig "bind"]
    generic = V @git gitk-bg
    generic = > !git publish

🧚 Internal user-defined commands 🧚

Actions that start with a : get run and interpreted as internal commands, and they act a lot like commands you'd run through Tig's prompt. The valid internal commands are configuration file options (yeah, the ones described in this very document 💖) plus pager view commands. Examples:

# Reload ~/.tigrc when 'S' is pressed
bind generic S :source .tigrc

# Change diff view to show all commit changes regardless of file limitations
bind diff F :set diff-options = --full-diff

# Show the output of git-reflog(1) in the pager view
bind generic W :!git reflog

# Search for previous diff (c)hunk and next diff header
bind stage 2 :?^@@
bind stage D :/^diff --(git|cc)

bind main I :toggle id                          # Show/hide the ID column
bind diff D :toggle diff-options --minimal      # Use minimal diff algorithm
bind diff [ :toggle diff-context -3             # Decrease context (-U arg)
bind diff ] :toggle diff-context +3             # Increase context
bind generic V :toggle split-view-height -10%   # Decrease split height

Just like external commands, pager view commands can contain variable names, and those get substituted before the command actually runs. 🫶

👑 Action names 👑

Valid action names are listed below, babes. Quick heads up though: all action names are case-insensitive, and you can use -, _, and . interchangeably — so "view-main", "View.Main", and "VIEW_MAIN" are all literally the same thing. Slay. 💅

🌈 View switching

  • view-main — show the main view
  • view-diff — show the diff view
  • view-log — show the log view
  • view-reflog — show the reflog view
  • view-tree — show the tree view
  • view-blob — show the blob view
  • view-blame — show the blame view
  • view-refs — show the refs view
  • view-status — show the status view
  • view-stage — show the stage view
  • view-stash — show the stash view
  • view-grep — show the grep view
  • view-pager — show the pager view
  • view-help — show the help view

🦋 View manipulation

  • enter — enter and open the selected line
  • back — go back to the previous view state
  • next — move to next
  • previous — move to previous
  • parent — move to parent
  • view-next — move focus to the next view
  • refresh — reload and refresh the view
  • maximize — maximize the current view
  • view-close — close the current view
  • view-close-no-quit — close the current view without quitting
  • quit — close all views and quit

🍓 View-specific actions

  • status-update — stage/unstage chunk or file changes
  • status-revert — revert chunk or file changes
  • status-merge — merge file using an external tool
  • stage-update-line — stage/unstage a single line
  • stage-update-part — stage/unstage part of a chunk
  • stage-split-chunk — split the current diff chunk

🎀 Cursor navigation

  • move-up — move cursor one line up
  • move-down — move cursor one line down
  • move-page-up — move cursor one page up
  • move-page-down — move cursor one page down
  • move-half-page-up — move cursor half a page up
  • move-half-page-down — move cursor half a page down
  • move-first-line — move cursor to the first line
  • move-last-line — move cursor to the last line
  • move-next-merge — move cursor to the next merge commit
  • move-prev-merge — move cursor to the previous merge commit

💜 Scrolling

  • scroll-line-up — scroll one line up
  • scroll-line-down — scroll one line down
  • scroll-page-up — scroll one page up
  • scroll-page-down — scroll one page down
  • scroll-half-page-up — scroll half a page up
  • scroll-half-page-down — scroll half a page down
  • scroll-first-col — scroll to the first line columns
  • scroll-left — scroll two columns left
  • scroll-right — scroll two columns right

🔍 Searching

  • search — search the view
  • search-back — search backwards in the view
  • find-next — find the next search match
  • find-prev — find the previous search match

✨ Misc

  • edit — open in editor
  • prompt — open the prompt
  • options — open the options menu
  • screen-redraw — redraw the screen
  • stop-loading — stop all loading views
  • show-version — show version information
  • none — do nothing

🎨 COLOR COMMAND 🎨

Okay bestie, this one's the glow-up command. Color commands control highlighting and the user interface styles. If your terminal supports color and the NO_COLOR environment variable is unset or empty, you can use these commands to assign foreground and background combos to certain areas. Optionally, an attribute can be given as the last parameter. The syntax is:

color area fgcolor bgcolor [attributes]

Examples:

# Override the default terminal colors to white on black.
color default           white   black
# Diff colors
color diff-header       yellow  default
color diff-index        blue    default
color diff-chunk        magenta default
color "Reported-by:"    green   default
# View-specific color
color tree.date         black   cyan    bold
# Custom color
color "/(note|warning|error):/" yellow  default bold

Or in the Git configuration files:

[tig "color"]
        # A strange looking cursor line
        cursor          = red   default underline
        # UI colors
        title-blur      = white blue
        title-focus     = white blue    bold
# View-specific color
[tig "color.tree"]
        date            = cyan  default bold

🌸 Area names 🌸

Can be either a built-in area name or a custom quoted string. The latter lets you add custom color rules for lines matching a quoted string. Strings shaped like /.../ get interpreted as regular expressions. Valid built-in area names are described below. Note, all names are case-insensitive, and you may use - and _ interchangeably, e.g. "Diff-Header" and "DIFF_HEADER" are the same. View-specific colors can be defined by prefixing the view name to the area name, e.g. "stage.diff-chunk" and "diff.diff-chunk".

💜 Color names 💜

Valid colors include: white, black, green, magenta, blue, cyan, yellow, red, default. Use default to refer to the default terminal colors, for example, to keep the background transparent when you are using a terminal with a transparent background.

Colors can also be specified using the keywords color0, color1, ..., colorN-1 (where N is the number of colors supported by your terminal). This is useful when you remap the colors for your display or want to enable colors supported by 88-color and 256-color terminals. Note that the color prefix is optional. If you prefer, you can specify colors directly by their numbers 0, 1, ..., N-1 instead, just like in the configuration file of Git.

✨ Attribute names ✨

Valid attributes include: normal, blink, bold, dim, reverse, standout, and underline. Note, not all attributes may be supported by the terminal.

🫶 UI colors 🫶

The colors and attributes to be used for the text that is not highlighted or that specify the use of the default terminal colors can be controlled by setting the default color option.

💅 Table 1. General 💅

  • default — Override default terminal colors (see above).
  • cursor — The cursor line for the current view.
  • cursor-blur — The cursor line of any backgrounded view.
  • status — The status window showing info messages.
  • title-focus — The title window for the current view.
  • title-blur — The title window of any backgrounded view.
  • search-result — Highlighted search result.
  • delimiter — Delimiter shown for truncated lines.
  • header — The view header lines. Use status.header to color the staged, unstaged, and untracked sections in the status view. Use help.header to color the keymap sections in the help view.
  • line-number — Line numbers.
  • id — The commit ID.
  • date — The committer date or author date.
  • author — The commit author.
  • committer — The committer.
  • mode — The file mode holding the permissions and type.
  • overflow — Title text overflow.
  • directory — The directory name.
  • file — The file name.
  • file-size — File size.

🦋 Table 2. Main view colors 🦋

  • graph-commit — The commit dot in the revision graph.
  • palette-[0-13] — 14 different colors, used for distinguishing branches or commits. By default, the palette uses the ASCII colors, where the second half of them have the bold attribute enabled to give a brighter color. Example: palette-0 = red
  • main-commit — The commit comment.
  • main-annotated — The commit comment of an annotated commit.
  • main-head — Label of the current branch.
  • main-remote — Label of a remote.
  • main-tracked — Label of the remote tracked by the current branch.
  • main-tag — Label of a signed tag.
  • main-local-tag — Label of a local tag.
  • main-ref — Label of a branch.
  • main-replace — Label of replaced reference.
  • main-stash — Label of the stash.
  • main-note — Label of notes.
  • main-prefetch — Label of reference prefetched by git maintenance.
  • main-other — Label of any other reference.

🎀 Table 3. Status view 🎀

  • stat-none — Empty status label.
  • stat-staged — Status flag of staged files.
  • stat-unstaged — Status flag of unstaged files.
  • stat-untracked — Status flag of untracked files.

🌈 Table 4. Help view 🌈

  • help-group — Help group name.
  • help-action — Help action name.

⭐ Highlighting ⭐

🔥 Diff markup 🔥

Options concerning diff start, chunks and lines added and deleted.

diff-header, diff-chunk, diff-stat, diff-add, diff-add2, diff-del, diff-del2, diff-add-highlight, diff-del-highlight

💖 Enhanced Git diff markup 💖

Extra diff information emitted by the Git diff machinery, such as mode changes, rename detection, and similarity.

diff-oldmode, diff-newmode, diff-copy-from, diff-copy-to, diff-similarity, diff-index

🧚 Pretty print commit headers 🧚

Commit diffs and the revision logs are usually formatted using pretty printed headers , unless --pretty=raw was given. This includes lines, such as merge info, commit ID, and author and committer date.

pp-refs, pp-reflog, pp-reflogmsg, pp-merge

💀 Raw commit header 💀

Usually shown when --pretty=raw is given, however commit is pretty much omnipresent.

commit, parent, tree, author, committer

🍓 Commit message 🍓

Most common trailer lines (e.g. Signed-off-by) are colorized. Characters in the commit title exceeding a predefined width can be highlighted.

🌸 Tree markup 🌸

Colors for information of the tree view.

tree-dir, tree-file

📂 SOURCE COMMAND 📂

Source commands make it possible to read additional configuration files. Sourced files are included in-place, meaning when a source command is encountered the file will be immediately read. Any commands later in the current configuration file will take precedence.

If the given path does not exist, tig will proceed with a warning. Give the -q parameter to suppress the warning.

The syntax is:

source [-q] path

Examples:

source ~/.tig/colorscheme.tigrc
source ~/.tig/keybindings.tigrc

Copyright (c) 2006-2026 Jonas Fonseca <jonas.fonseca@gmail.com[1]>

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

🔗 SEE ALSO 🔗

tig(1), tigmanual(7), git(7), git-config(1)

📝 NOTES 📝

  1. jonas.fonseca@gmail.com mailto:jonas.fonseca@gmail.com

and that's a wrap on the whole TIGRC(5) page bestie!! 🎉 this beauty is from Tig 2.6.1, dated 2026-06-13, and it lives at page TIGRC(5) in the manual. go forth and color ur diffs, u absolute icon 💅✨

📦 where this page comes from