Magit

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Magit
Original author(s) Marius Vollmer
Developer(s) Jonas Bernoulli, Kyle Meyer, and Noam Postavsky
Stable release
4.2.0 [1]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg / 1 January 2025;49 days ago (1 January 2025)
Repository github.com/magit/magit
Written in Emacs Lisp
Type
  • Git client
  • Text editor plugin
License GPL-3.0-or-later
Website magit.vc

Magit ( /ˈmædʒɪt/ MA-jit or /ˈmʌɡɪt/ MUH-git [2] ) is an interface to the Git version control system, available as a GNU Emacs package [3] [4] written in Emacs Lisp. It is available through the MELPA package repository, [5] on which it is the most-downloaded non-library package, with over 4.3 million downloads as of September 2024. [6]

Contents

Like many graphical user interfaces, Magit provides a visual interface to represent version control actions; however, it uses a keyboard-centric model, and also functions as a text-based user interface. [a] The issue of key-memorization is mitigated through use of a popup menu which displays the actions available to the user [7] — serving as a mnemonic aid. [8]

History

Magit was created by Marius Vollmer in 2008, [9] with Jonas Bernoulli assuming the role of maintainer in 2013. [10] Since its release, Magit has seen a high degree of community involvement, with 350 individuals [11] having contributed code to this free software project as of September 2020.

In 2018 Magit underwent a Kickstarter funding campaign [12] which aimed to fund the maintainer for a year of work. The fundraising was successful and resulted in the project being the 27th most funded software project on Kickstarter. [13] Since the Kickstarter funded period expired donations are encouraged to support the authors development via direct payments, GitHub's sponsorship program and various other crowdfunding services. [14]

Functionality

A Magit buffer displaying the Emacs git repository's log GNU Emacs showing a Magit buffer.png
A Magit buffer displaying the Emacs git repository's log

Magit aims to encapsulate the entire functionality of Git, [15] and has interfaces for workflows such as: [16]

Forges

Magit's Forge provides integration with a number of forges, [17] namely GitHub and GitLab. [18]

Partial support is also listed for: Gitea, Gogs, Bitbucket, Gitweb, Cgit, StGit and SourceHut.

Forge currently allows for [19]

Reception

Magit is favourably covered in a number of blog posts and tutorials and a talk delivered by former Emacs' maintainer John Wiegley. [20] [21] [22]

Magit is included by default in the Emacs configuration frameworks Spacemacs and Doom Emacs. [23] [24]

There has been interest in including Magit as a built-in feature package in Emacs, but there are issues with obtaining FSF copyright assignment from all contributors to the project. [25]

As of February 2023, Magit is the most starred Emacs package on GitHub. [26]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ In part this is a consequence of being designed for GNU Emacs, which itself can operate as a TUI.

References

  1. ↑ "Release 4.2.0". 1 January 2025. Retrieved 26 January 2025.
  2. ↑ "How to pronounce Magit? (Magit User Manual)". magit.vc. Retrieved 2024-09-15.
  3. ↑ Corbet, Jonathan (July 12, 2017). "Emacs and Magit". LWN.net.
  4. ↑ "EmacsWiki: Magit" . Retrieved 2020-09-17.
  5. ↑ "magit". Milkypostman's Emacs Lisp Package Archive. Retrieved 2020-09-20.
  6. ↑ "Current List of Packages". Milkypostman's Emacs Lisp Package Archive. Retrieved 2024-09-15.
  7. ↑ "Transient commands". GitHub . Retrieved 2020-09-17.
  8. ↑ Bernoulli, Jonas (2017-09-01). "Magit, the magical Git interface". EmacsAir.
  9. ↑ "magit/magit.el". GitHub . Retrieved 2020-09-17.
  10. ↑ "Magit 1.4.0 Release Notes". GitHub . 2015-07-01. Retrieved 2020-09-20.
  11. ↑ "GitStats - magit". magit.vc. Retrieved 2022-03-08.
  12. ↑ "It's Magit! The magical Git client". Kickstarter .
  13. ↑ "Discover » Technology / Software » Most Funded — Kickstarter" . Retrieved 2020-09-17.
  14. ↑ "Please help making it better".
  15. ↑ Bernoulli, Jonas. "It's Magit! A Git Porcelain inside Emacs". magit.vc. Retrieved 2022-01-02.
  16. ↑ "Top (Magit User Manual)". magit.vc.
  17. ↑ Heartman, Thomas (16 March 2020). "Improve your workflow with Forge".
  18. ↑ "Forge User and Developer Manual". magit.vc.
  19. ↑ "Usage (Forge User and Developer Manual)". magit.vc.
  20. ↑ Patil, Sachin. "How to use Magit to manage Git projects". opensource.com.
  21. ↑ Bachmann, Gunther. "Magit – A textual git interface". itemis.
  22. ↑ Wiegley, John. "It's Magit!". YouTube.
  23. ↑ "Spacemacs - source control layer". GitHub. Retrieved 2020-09-19.
  24. ↑ "Doom Emacs - default modules file". GitHub. Retrieved 2020-09-19.
  25. ↑ Stallman, Richard (5 July 2017). "Re: In support of Jonas Bernoulli's Magit". emacs-devel (Mailing list). Retrieved 2020-09-19.
  26. ↑ "GitHub Search for "stars:>1000", Emacs lisp, sorted by most stars". GitHub. Retrieved 2020-09-19.
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