lazygit: a terminal UI for Git with one-key staging and rebasing

Git is powerful, but its command-line interface makes everyday tasks heavy: staging individual lines, editing an old commit, squashing a few commits before opening a PR, cherry-picking onto another branch. Each is a chain of commands and flags to remember, and one wrong step sends you to git reflog. lazygit is a panel-based UI right in the terminal: see changed files, branches, commits and stash at once, and do any of those operations with a single key.

GitHub: https://github.com/jesseduffield/lazygit · about 84k stars · Go · MIT

Installation

brew install lazygit                                  # macOS
winget install -e --id=JesseDuffield.lazygit          # Windows
go install github.com/jesseduffield/lazygit@latest    # with Go

cd my-repo && lazygit

The screen is split into panels: Status, Files, Branches, Commits, Stash, plus a main panel on the right showing the diff for the selected item. Use number keys 1–5 or left/right arrows to switch panels. Press ? anywhere to see that panel's shortcuts.

Everyday operations

Where lazygit beats the command line

Interactive rebase

In the Commits panel, press i to start an interactive rebase, then mark commits: s squash, f fixup, d drop, e edit, ctrl+k/ctrl+j to move up/down. You can also press s directly on a commit to squash it without explicitly starting a rebase.

Cherry-pick

Press shift+c on a commit to copy it, switch to the target branch, and press shift+v to paste (cherry-pick) it.

Bisect

In the Commits panel, press b to mark commits good/bad and start a git bisect to find the commit that introduced a bug.

Safe undo

z undoes using the reflog. Note: it only covers commits and branches, not changes to the working tree or stash.

Customisation

• Configuration lives in a config.yml file (location depends on your OS; see docs/Config.md in the repo): change themes, keybindings, add custom commands.
• Use delta for prettier diffs by setting a pager under git.paging in the config.
• Add alias lg=lazygit for speed.

Caveats

• lazygit runs real git commands; force-pushing or dropping commits has the same consequences as on the command line. Read confirmation dialogs carefully.
• You still need basic Git knowledge: the tool makes things faster, but doesn't replace understanding when complex conflicts arise.

How to apply it

• Dev: Use lazygit to tidy commit history before opening a PR (squash the "fix typo" commits), and to stage partial changes into meaningful commits.
• Tech Lead: If the team expects a clean history, lazygit lowers the barrier to interactive rebase for less experienced members; use it in Git workshops for newcomers.
• PM: A tidy commit history makes changelogs easier to read and bugs easier to trace; this free tool helps with exactly that.