Question

Let’s say I make a repo

cd repo1
git init
git config user.name "Jack"
git config user.email [e-mail]

and then I make another

cd ../repo2
git init
git config --global user.name "Jill"
git config --global user.email [e-mail]

Will I be Jack or Jill in repo1?
I assume that I’ll be Jack in repo1 if these 2 steps are done in the opposite order?

Answer 1

You will be Jack in repo1, and Jill in repo2, regardless of the order in which you run the commands. From the git config man page:

   If not set explicitly with --file, there are four files where git config will search for configuration options:

   $GIT_DIR/config
       Repository specific configuration file.

   ~/.gitconfig
       User-specific configuration file. Also called "global" configuration file.

   $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config
       Second user-specific configuration file. If $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is not set or empty, $HOME/.config/git/config will be used. Any single-valued variable
       set in this file will be overwritten by whatever is in ~/.gitconfig. It is a good idea not to create this file if you sometimes use older versions of
       Git, as support for this file was added fairly recently.

   $(prefix)/etc/gitconfig
       System-wide configuration file.

Git loads these files in that order. Your local repository’s, .git/config, takes precedent over ~/.gitconfig, which takes precedent over $HOME/.config/git/config, which takes precedent over /etc/gitconfig. Moreover:

All writing options will per default write to the repository specific configuration file. Note that this also affects options like --replace-all and
--unset. git config will only ever change one file at a time.

The --global flag doesn’t change every .git/config on your system, just ~/.gitconfig.