private-git-config.md

Private Git Configuration

Git name and email are sensitive and not committed to this repo. The config uses Git's native include.path — the committed config references a local file that lives only on the machine.

How it works

home/common/cli/git.nix (the shared git module imported by all users via home/common/default.nix) declares:

programs.git.includes = [
  { path = "~/.config/git/private"; }
];

Every user automatically inherits this include — no per-user git config is needed. Git merges that file into the effective config at runtime. If the file doesn't exist, Git silently ignores it — no errors on a fresh machine before setup.

Setup on a new machine

Run this once after deploying:

mkdir -p ~/.config/git
git config --file ~/.config/git/private user.name "Your Name"
git config --file ~/.config/git/private user.email "your@email.com"

Using git config --file instead of a heredoc avoids line-break issues that can silently corrupt the file when pasting values in a terminal.

This file is never tracked by Nix or Git — it stays local to the machine.

Verify it works

git config --get user.email
git config --list --show-origin | grep user

The second command shows which file each value comes from.

---

Work laptop: admin user

On the work laptop, darwin-rebuild must be run from admin.daniel.a.sousa (the user that owns Homebrew), but Home Manager configures daniel.a.sousa independently.

admin.daniel.a.sousa  →  owns Homebrew, runs darwin-rebuild / nix.sh
daniel.a.sousa        →  gets fish, git, VSCode, and all Home Manager config

The private git file must be created under the normal user's home:

# Log in as daniel.a.sousa (not as admin), then:
mkdir -p ~/.config/git
git config --file ~/.config/git/private user.name "Daniel Sousa"
git config --file ~/.config/git/private user.email "your@company.com"