One of my favorite terminal customizations is adding Git repository/branch information to my prompt. I use ZSH as my default shell, and that’s a good thing here because ZSH ships with a function called vcs_info specifically for grabbing version control information.

1. Open your .zshrc config file

vi

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If your config file doesn’t exist, create it first using touch ~/.zshrc

2. Load in the version control system (VCS) info

Add the following lines to your .zshrc config file.

# Load version control information
autoload -Uz vcs_info
precmd() { vcs_info }

# Format the vcs_info_msg_0_ variable
zstyle ':vcs_info:git:*' formats 'on %b'

# Load version control information
autoload -Uz vcs_info
precmd() { vcs_info }

# Format the vcs_info_msg_0_ variable
zstyle ':vcs_info:git:*' formats 'on %b'

# Load version control information
autoload -Uz vcs_info
precmd() { vcs_info }

# Format the vcs_info_msg_0_ variable
zstyle ':vcs_info:git:*' formats 'on %b'

In the snippet above, %b will be replaced by the branch name

3. Add version control info to PROMPT

After loading in VCS info (in step 3 above), use the vcs_info_msg_0_ variable in your PROMPT string:

# Set up the prompt (with git branch name)
setopt PROMPT_SUBST
PROMPT='%n in ${PWD/#$HOME/~} ${vcs_info_msg_0_}
%# '

# Set up the prompt (with git branch name)
setopt PROMPT_SUBST
PROMPT='%n in ${PWD/#$HOME/~} ${vcs_info_msg_0_}
%# '

# Set up the prompt (with git branch name)
setopt PROMPT_SUBST
PROMPT='%n in ${PWD/#$HOME/~} ${vcs_info_msg_0_}
%# '

Optional: If you want that branch info to display aligned to the right, remove the ${vcs_info_msg_0_} line from your PROMPT and add an RPROMPT line to your config file instead:

RPROMPT

RPROMPT

RPROMPT

4. Reload to see the changes

Save, and reload your zshrc config file

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Admire your handiwork!

In this screenshot I set RPROMPT=\$vcs_info_msg_0_ in my .zshrc config so that branch information is right-aligned

Go further with vcs_info and nerdfonts

That’s it. If you want to go further, vcs_info provides other version control information such as staged/unstaged files, stash information etc. Check out this fantastic article by Arjan van der Gaag to see what else you can do.

To add iconography to your prompt — like how in this article's cover photo I added the Git branch icon — check out nerdfonts.