Bum: A Zsh Git Extension on IncludeIf: A digital space written in pencil

How to replicate bum

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 13:45:02 -0400

TL;DR

Bum is built on three principles: small composable scripts that do one thing well, guardrails that protect you from destructive operations, and gitconfig as a runtime database. Bum uses bum.* as its own config namespace, meaning it gets repo-awareness, includeIf support, and per-project configuration completely for free because git already does all of that. Under the hood, bum leans almost exclusively on plumbing commands rather than porcelain, making it stable across git versions. The .git directory isn’t always where you think it is, and bum handles that too. None of this is magic. It’s just git, used deliberately.

bum: 11 years of git, wrapped in a toolkit

Sun, 17 Mar 2019 20:03:10 +0200

Note: This is a complete rewrite of an article about the bum git toolkit, originally posted on Medium in 2019. This version has been updated and restructured for a clearer, more engaging explanation of the workflows I’ve refined over 11 years.

TL;DR

Bum is a collection of shell scripts, written in zsh (my daily shell), that help me work more efficiently with git.

Git supports custom aliases and external commands. If you create a script and name it with a git- prefix (e.g. git-foo), you can run it as git foo. Bum builds on that convention, offering tools like git nb, git wip, and more.