How to Install and Use Lazygit – A Terminal UI for Git

Git’s power is well known, but its many commands can be cumbersome; Lazygit is an open‑source terminal UI that simplifies Git operations and even supports basic mouse control.

Lazygit is maintained by Jesseduffield on GitHub. For a quick feature overview, watch the video at https://youtu.be/CPLdltN7wgE.

Installation methods :

Homebrew (macOS/Linux)

brew install jesseduffield/lazygit/lazygit

brew install lazygit

Ubuntu (PPA – deprecated for updates)

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:lazygit-team/release
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install lazygit

Scoop (Windows)

scoop bucket add extras
scoop install lazygit

Fedora and CentOS 7 (Copr)

sudo dnf copr enable atim/lazygit -y
sudo dnf install lazygit

Go install

go install github.com/jesseduffield/lazygit@latest

Basic operations : after installation run lazygit inside any local repository. You can create an alias, e.g., echo "alias lg='lazygit'" >> ~/.zshrc . Use the displayed help at the bottom of the UI for navigation: PgUp/PgDn to scroll, arrow keys to move the cursor, x to open menus, and mouse clicks to focus elements.

To stage files, move to the Files pane and click the desired file; clicking again unstages it. Commit by selecting staged files, pressing x , choosing a commit method, and entering a message. Push and Pull are also accessed via the x menu.

To change the shell’s directory after exiting Lazygit, add the following function to your rc file:

lg() {
    export LAZYGIT_NEW_DIR_FILE=~/.lazygit/newdir
    lazygit "$@"
    if [ -f $LAZYGIT_NEW_DIR_FILE ]; then
        cd "$(cat $LAZYGIT_NEW_DIR_FILE)"
        rm -f $LAZYGIT_NEW_DIR_FILE > /dev/null
    fi
}

Undo/redo, configuration, and custom commands are documented in Lazygit’s official docs (see references). Use lazygit --debug and lazygit --logs in separate terminals for local debugging.

References

GitHub repository: https://github.com/jesseduffield/lazygit

Video demo: https://youtu.be/CPLdltN7wgE

Launchpad PPA: https://launchpad.net/~lazygit-team

Scoop: https://scoop.sh/

Copr: https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/atim/lazygit/

Key bindings: https://github.com/jesseduffield/lazygit/tree/master/docs/keybindings

Undo documentation: https://github.com/jesseduffield/lazygit/blob/master/docs/Undoing.md

Custom pager docs: https://github.com/jesseduffield/lazygit/blob/master/docs/Custom_Pagers.md

Custom command keybindings: https://github.com/jesseduffield/lazygit/blob/master/docs/Custom_Command_Keybindings.md