git insteadOf and includeIf interaction

Have you ever set your gitconfig with insteadOf like this?

$ cat ~/.config/git/config
[url "git@github.com"]
insteadOf = "gh"

You can clone without fully typing "git@github.com", and it would resolve the remote URL like usual.

$ git clone gh:torvalds/linux
$ git remote -v
origin git@github.com:torvalds/linux

I've been set it up like that for years. All this time, I thought it happens only once when I do git clone. Today, when I'm playing with the new includeIf, it doesn't works as I expected.

https://github.com/git/git/commit/399b198489a041e2842fb4b257bea5adb02d28d1

The optional config file never got included. I tried changing both git config and git remote to http format, and it works. One curious "cat .git/config" on my repository later, I found that git store the remote using the original insteadOf url.

$ cat .git/config
[remote "origin"]
url = "gh:torvalds/linux"

And since includeIf checks config file, it doesn't match to any of the remote. Now, I've changed it to the correct one, and everything works as expected.

$ cat ~/.config/git/config
[includeIf "hasconfig:remote.*.url:gh:*/**"]
path = github

You may also want to keep 3 kind of includeIf, in case you forgot to use one or the other.

$ cat ~/.config/git/config
[includeIf "hasconfig:remote.*.url:https://github.com/torvalds/*"]
path = github

[includeIf "hasconfig:remote.*.url:git@github.com:torvalds/*"]
path = github

[includeIf "hasconfig:remote.*.url:gh:torvalds/*"]
path = github

One use cases is if you want to have different commit author detail set up for different repo. This is how I set up my git config.

$ cat ~/.config/git/config
[url "git@git.sr.ht:~"]
insteadOf "hut:"

[url "git@gitlab.com:"]
insteadOf "lab:"

[includeIf "hasconfig:remote.*.url:hut:bentinata/*"]
path = personal

[includeIf "hasconfig:remote.*.url:lab:workplace/*"]
path = work

$ cat ~/.config/git/personal
[user]
email = bentinata@personal-domain.example

$ cat ~/.config/git/work
[user]
email = ben.nata@workplace.com

Now I can clone without typing as much, and still have different committer email for personal and work repositories when I move between projects.

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