Committing

Writing the message, signing or not signing, and what the button waits for.

The commit panel is under the file list and is always visible. There is no sheet to open and nothing to dismiss: you can start typing the message before you have finished staging.

The staged counter, the message, the signing toggle, and the commit button.

The counter

Above the message field, a line says how many files are staged. The Commit button waits for two things: that number to be at least one, and a message that is not empty. Until both are true it stays unavailable, which is the app telling you the truth rather than letting you press a button that would do nothing.

A merge that has been resolved is the exception. There the button is live with nothing staged and no message typed, because the commit is the merge and Git already has a message for it.

⌘↩ commits without leaving the message field.

Signing

The Sign commit toggle starts in the state your repository’s commit.gpgSign setting implies. Switched on, Innesta signs with the GPG or SSH key Git is configured to use; switched off, it makes an unsigned commit.

The same toggle governs amending, and manual Merge Branch and Rebase Branch actions. Finishing something that is already under way is where it stops applying, because changing it halfway through would produce a history signed in patches:

  • Continue during a merge does use the toggle as it stands.
  • A rebase that Innesta started keeps whatever the toggle said when it began.
  • A rebase or cherry-pick that something else started keeps the signing policy Git was given at the time.

While one of those is in progress the toggle is switched off entirely, and says why.

If signing fails, Innesta says which of the several possible reasons it was — no OpenPGP key, an SSH key that cannot be reached, pinentry not answering, SSH signing not configured, a GPG home directory with permissions Git refuses to use — and the complete Git output stays there to be copied.

After the commit

The message field empties, the staged files leave the list, and the status bar says what happened. The commit is local: nothing has left your Mac until you push it.