Stop Git from Opening a new Terminal.app Window on Commit

Question

Git is automatically opening a Terminal window when I save commit messages on my Mac. This might normally be useful (e.g. if the commit was initiated from a Terminal window), but I use iTerm as my terminal emulator and as such this is just annoying. Is there anyway to configure Git to either use iTerm or otherwise stop doing this altogether?

Answer 1

I wonder if you system is trying to open a terminal window so you can enter the commit message? If so, you can make your commits without an editor like this:

git commit -m"My commit message here"

If you just type:

git commit

Then git opens an editor window so that you can provide the commit message. Hope this helps.

Answer 2

A-ha! So running env and re-examining my environment variables, I came across this little gem:

EDITOR=mvim -f -c "au VimLeave * !open -a Terminal"

I had apparently set my editor (MacVim in this case) to automatically reopen my terminal window when I was done, long before I was using iTerm.app. Changing this to a simple

EDITOR=mvim -f -c "au VimLeave * !open -a iTerm"

alleviated my problem. Thanks for your answers and for providing me with the spark I needed to solve the problem!