Show your Current Git Branch in your Shell Prompt

If you’re following good programming practices, you’ll use a reversion control system like git to manage your projects and use branches when adding new features. Jason Seifer has a handy little tip on how to add the active branch into your shell prompt, which works great in Mac OS X’s default bash shell. Just add this to your .profile file in our home directory:

parse_git_branch() {
  git branch --no-color 2> /dev/null | sed -e '/^[^*]/d' -e 's/* \(.*\)/\ →\ \1/'
}

export PS1='\[\e[1;37m\][\[\e[1;35m\]\u\[\e[1;37m\]@\[\e[1;32m\]\h\[\e[1;37m\]:\[\e[1;36m\]\w\[\e[1;33m\]$(parse_git_branch)\[\e[1;37m\]]$ \[\e[0m\]'

(Finally had an opportunity to use that SyntaxHighlighter Evolved WordPress plugin.)

Jason likes a lot of colors in his prompt and must not mind it wrapping into the next line, so I’ve muted down the colors and left only the last part of the current working directory in my version:

parse_git_branch() {
  git branch --no-color 2> /dev/null | sed -e '/^[^*]/d' -e 's/* \(.*\)/\ →\ \1/'
}

export PS1='\u\[\e[1;37m\]@\[\e[1;32m\]\h\[\e[1;37m\]:\[\e[1;31m\]\W\[\e[1;33m\]$(parse_git_branch)\[\e[0;39m\] '
export PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "\033]0;${PWD}\007"'

As a bonus, I’m even setting the Terminal window title bar with the full current directory path via PROMPT_COMMAND. I’ve also disabled the active process name and dimensions under Terminal’s Settings – Windows preferences, to make room for long paths.

If you want to experiment with other colors, check out this bash prompt color guide for the escape code sequences.