Last Updated: 2024-11-23

There was trouble with git on a colleague's machine. I was confident about what would fix the issue (since it worked on my machine) and dictated various commands to my colleague. However, these commands did not have the intended effect.

The issue came down to my having certain settings in my ~/.gitconfig file, non-default settings that had become second nature to me and which distorted my view of how git usually worked. For example, I had ff merges disabled globally.

More generally, any program that has been a long time on my dev machine (e.g. git), can build up settings in its config file that diverge from the norm.

Lesson

Be aware of local settings on your machine before trying a fix out on a colleague's machine.