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GitButler Blog
blog.gitbutler.com · Company blog · on HN since 2023
The GitButler team writes about Git workflows, code review tooling, and the company's licensing and product changes.
What HN saysHN commenters praise the post on how core Git developers configure Git and use its settings. Others link it for its relicensing to fair source.
41HN people shared it
10linked it in comments
55stories submitted
3.5Kstory points
3 months agolast shared
2023people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1How Core Git Developers Configure Git5 people · 887 points · first shared 2025 · 122 comments on HN
- 2GitButler is now fair source4 people · 101 points · first shared 2024 · 102 comments on HN
- 3Fast Git on Huge Repositories and Monorepos4 people · 9 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 4Opening Up GitButler3 people · 19 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 5The Future of Open Source3 people · 13 points · first shared 2024 · 7 comments on HN
- 6GitButler's new patch based Code Review (Beta)3 people · 8 points · first shared 2025 · 3 comments on HN
- 7Interdiff review with git range-diff3 people · 7 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 8The Great CSS Expansion3 people · 5 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 9We've raised $17M to build what comes after Git3 people · 3 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 10The GitButler CLI3 people · 3 points · first shared 2026 · 1 comments on HN
- 11Why GitHub won2 people · 652 points · first shared 2024 · 504 comments on HN
- 12Why is Git Autocorrect too fast for Formula One drivers?2 people · 450 points · first shared 2025 · 243 comments on HN
- 13GitButler now supports first class conflicts, making rebasing less annoying2 people · 109 points · first shared 2024 · 113 comments on HN
- 14Git tips and tricks1 people · 506 points · first shared 2024 · 136 comments on HN
- 1520 years of Git1 people · 306 points · first shared 2025 · 227 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
davidelettieri · 2026-06-01
I'm using these options https://blog.gitbutler.com/how-git-core-devs-configure-git and I'm happy with it
Anamon · 2026-02-22
I had configured that one ever since reading this very helpful article, which I suspect I discovered through HN a while ago:
https://blog.gitbutler.com/how-git-core-devs-configure-git
ChadNauseam · 2026-02-01
I've been getting my family members to start vibe coding. In my experience, claude works very well but the biggest issue is actually installing all the necessary tools. So I created a little setup script that MacOS users can use to get up-and-running quickly.
It basically sets them up with a development environment similar to the one I use personally. It uses the git settings from https://blog.gitbutler.com/how-git-core-devs-configure-git , helps them set up their username/email, downloads Ghostty, VSCode, fnm and pnpm, etc.
schacon · 2025-12-05
GitButler handles all of this pretty automatically, if you don't want to deal with the Git gymnastics needed here.
https://blog.gitbutler.com/stacked-branches-with-gitbutler
timrod · 2025-02-26
GitButler relicensed[1] to FSL, so it's source-available now, open-source after two years.
[1]: https://blog.gitbutler.com/gitbutler-is-now-fair-source/
maccard · 2025-02-05
This war was over around about the time I started, but my take on it is that it's all a bit intermixed and Mercurial lost because bitbucket caved and did git hosting [2], but git won beacuse of github and heroku [1][2]
[1] https://www.koyeb.com/blog/herokus-free-tier-legacy-the-shoulders-we-s… [2] https://blog.gitbutler.com/why-github-actually-won/
ilyagr · 2024-12-03
> In Retcon, if a commit move results in a conflict, that doesn't matter; you can keep making changes to your history anyway, and then resolve any remaining conflicts when you're ready.
I didn't realize Retcon could do this from the website, nice!
I wonder how similar your approach is to [jj's approach to conflicts]; whether you reinvented the same way of modelling conflicts in the repo or use a different one. (See also the link to the technical docs from that page)
https://gitbutler.com/ also [borrowed this idea] from jj.
[jj's approach to conflicts]: https://martinvonz.github.io/jj/latest/conflicts/
[borrowed this idea]: https://blog.gitbutler.com/fearless-rebasing/
So, there are several tools exploring these ideas, but there are interesting differences in (for example) how close to Git each of these approaches stays.
chokolad · 2024-02-23
Microsoft uses git for Windows repository pretty successfully. It started with custom VFS implementation and fork of git but by now everthing is upstreamed and VFS is not used anymore.
https://blog.gitbutler.com/git-tips-3-really-large-repositories/
tsukurimashou · 2024-02-13
https://blog.gitbutler.com/rss/
most of the time trying the main URL + /rss works
also the tag is there <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="GitButler" href="https://blog.gitbutler.com/rss/">
cmrdporcupine · 2026-06-10
https://blog.gitbutler.com/series-a likely has a large part to play in it.
By which I mean, what do we imagine a16z thinks of the [L]GPL?
My brief experience in a startup exposed to them is that a16z seems willing to fund "infrastructure" projects more than most, but they did seem to have a ready set of answers on what "open source" means in that context.
(If someone can find me an a16z funded team that published copylefted code, I'll take this back.)
EDIT: Ok, i'll eat my hat, Gemini found me some counterexamples
Element (Matrix): The company behind the decentralized Matrix communication protocol is on a16z's investment list. In late 2023, Element relicensed its core software (including the Synapse server and its clients) to AGPLv3.
Uniswap Labs: A massive cornerstone of the a16z Crypto portfolio. They published the Uniswap V2 smart contracts under GPL-3.0 (though they later shifted to a Business Source License for V3 and V4).
a16z Themselves: In an ironic twist, a16z's own crypto engineering team maintains a public GitHub repository (a16z/a16z-contracts — a library for Solidity contracts) that is literally licensed under AGPL-3.0.