Language Settings

GitWhisper supports multiple languages for commit messages and code analysis. By default, all messages are generated in English, but you can configure your preferred language to match your team’s or project’s requirements.

Changing Language

Use the change-language command to set your preferred language:

gw change-language

This will launch an interactive selector:

$ gw change-language
? Please select your preferred language for commit messages:
  English
  Spanish
  French
  German
  Chinese (simplified)
  Japanese
  Korean
  ...

✨ Great! Spanish has been set as your default language for Git commit messages.

Supported Languages

GitWhisper supports the following languages:

English

English (US)
English (UK)

European

Spanish
French
German
Italian
Portuguese
Russian
Dutch
Swedish
Norwegian
Danish
Finnish
Greek

Asian

Chinese (Simplified)
Chinese (Traditional)
Japanese
Korean
Hindi

Middle Eastern

Arabic
Turkish

African

Shona
Zulu

Language Configuration

The language setting is stored in your configuration file (~/.git_whisper.yaml):

language: es;ES  # Spanish (Spain)

The format is language_code;country_code:

en;US - English (United States)
en;GB - English (United Kingdom)
es;ES - Spanish (Spain)
fr;FR - French (France)
de;DE - German (Germany)
zh;CN - Chinese (Simplified, China)
zh;TW - Chinese (Traditional, Taiwan)
ja;JP - Japanese (Japan)
ko;KR - Korean (Korea)
ar;SA - Arabic (Saudi Arabia)
sn;ZW - Shona (Zimbabwe)
zu;ZA - Zulu (South Africa)

Commit Message Examples

Here’s how commit messages appear in different languages:

✨ feat: Add user authentication system

Implement JWT-based authentication with login, logout, and token refresh endpoints.
Includes middleware for protected routes and session management.

Conventional Commit Prefixes

GitWhisper follows the Conventional Commits specification. The prefixes remain in English for compatibility with tools and parsers:

feat: - New feature
fix: - Bug fix
docs: - Documentation changes
style: - Code style changes (formatting, etc.)
refactor: - Code refactoring
test: - Adding or updating tests
chore: - Maintenance tasks
perf: - Performance improvements
ci: - CI/CD changes
build: - Build system changes

While the commit type prefixes remain in English, the commit message description and body will be in your configured language.

How It Works

When you generate a commit message:

GitWhisper analyzes your staged changes
Sends the changes to the AI model with your language preference
The AI generates a commit message in your specified language
Conventional commit prefixes remain in English
The description and body are in your configured language

Best Practices

Choosing a language for your team

Consider your team’s composition:

International teams: Use English as the common language
Regional teams: Use the local language for better communication
Open source projects: English is recommended for wider accessibility
Private projects: Use whatever language your team is most comfortable with

Document your decision:

## Commit Message Language

This project uses Spanish for commit messages. All team members should configure:
```bash
gw change-language
# Select: Spanish

</Accordion>

<Accordion title="Maintaining consistency">
**All team members should use the same language:**

1. **Add to your team's onboarding docs:**
   ```markdown
   ### GitWhisper Configuration
   
   Set your language preference to match the team:
   ```bash
   gw change-language
   # Select: French

2. **Include in your CONTRIBUTING.md:**
```markdown
### Commit Messages

We use GitWhisper to generate commit messages in German.
Please configure your GitWhisper installation accordingly.

Use code review to enforce:
- Check that commit messages are in the agreed language
- Request changes if messages are in a different language

Multilingual projects

For projects with international contributors:

Stick with English for maximum compatibility
Document this requirement clearly in your README
Consider that tools and CI/CD systems may expect English

However, if your project serves a specific region:

# Example: A Spanish government project
language: es;ES

# Example: A Japanese company's internal tool
language: ja;JP

Impact on commit history searchability

Consider how language affects searching:English commits:

git log --grep="authentication"
git log --grep="fix.*memory leak"

Spanish commits:

git log --grep="autenticación"
git log --grep="fix.*fuga de memoria"

Tips:

Document common search terms in your project wiki
Consider creating aliases for frequently searched terms
Use issue/ticket numbers in commits for language-agnostic searching:
```
feat: Agregar autenticación de usuarios (#123)
```

CI/CD and tooling compatibility

Most CI/CD tools expect English:

Semantic release tools often parse English keywords
Changelog generators may not understand non-English messages
Some git hooks might validate against English patterns

If using non-English:

Verify your tooling supports it
You may need to customize parsers and validators
Consider using English for automated commits (CI/CD) and your language for manual commits

Example workflow:

# Manual commits: Spanish
gw commit  # Uses language: es;ES

# Automated commits: English
git commit -m "chore(deps): Update dependencies"  # CI/CD system

Viewing Current Language

Check your current language configuration:

gw show-config

Output:

Gitwhisper Configs:

Language:
  es;ES

Defaults:
  model:
    openai
  variant:
    gpt-4o

Configuration File

The language setting is part of your ~/.git_whisper.yaml:

language: es;ES

api_keys:
  openai: sk-xxx

defaults:
  model: openai
  variant: gpt-4o

confirm_commits: true
allow_emojis: true

Changing Language Manually

While the change-language command is recommended, you can manually edit the configuration file:

# ~/.git_whisper.yaml
language: ja;JP  # Change to Japanese

Restart GitWhisper after manual changes:

gw commit  # Will now use Japanese

Language-Specific Features

Date Formats

Dates in commit messages follow regional formats:

en;US: 12/31/2025 (MM/DD/YYYY)
en;GB: 31/12/2025 (DD/MM/YYYY)
ja;JP: 2025年12月31日
zh;CN: 2025-12-31

Number Formats

Numbers may be formatted according to regional conventions:

en;US: 1,000.50
de;DE: 1.000,50
fr;FR: 1 000,50

Fallback Behavior

If the language is not set or invalid:

GitWhisper defaults to en;US (English, United States)
A message is logged: “Using default language: English”
No error is thrown - the commit proceeds with English messages

Code Analysis Language

The language setting also affects code analysis output:

# Analyze code in Spanish
gw analyze

Output:

📊 Análisis del Código

📈 Resumen:
  - Archivos modificados: 5
  - Líneas agregadas: 120
  - Líneas eliminadas: 45

💡 Observaciones:
  - La función de autenticación necesita mejor manejo de errores
  - Considere agregar pruebas unitarias para los nuevos endpoints
  - La complejidad del módulo de base de datos está aumentando

Troubleshooting

Language not changing

Verify the configuration was saved:
```
gw show-config
```
Check file permissions on ~/.git_whisper.yaml
Try running change-language again
Restart your terminal session

Mixed language commits in history

If your commit history has mixed languages:

This is normal when changing language settings
Old commits retain their original language
New commits will use the new language
To standardize, you would need to rewrite history (not recommended)

AI generates wrong language

If the AI generates commits in a different language:

Verify your language configuration:
```
gw show-config
```
Check that the format is correct: language_code;country_code
Some AI models might occasionally slip into another language - regenerate:
```
gw commit --regenerate
```
Try a different model that has better multilingual support

Special characters not displaying

If you see garbled text or boxes instead of characters:

Ensure your terminal supports UTF-8:

echo $LANG
# Should show something like: en_US.UTF-8

On Windows, use Windows Terminal or a UTF-8 compatible terminal

Configure your git to use UTF-8:

git config --global core.quotepath false
git config --global i18n.commitencoding utf-8
git config --global i18n.logoutputencoding utf-8

Regional Variants

Some languages have regional variants:

English

en;US - American English (color, analyze)
en;GB - British English (colour, analyse)

Chinese

zh;CN - Simplified Chinese (简体中文)
zh;TW - Traditional Chinese (繁體中文)

Choose the variant that matches your region or preference.

Next Steps

API Keys

Learn how to manage API keys for different providers

Default Settings

Configure default model and behavior preferences

Usage Guide

Start using GitWhisper with your configured language

Advanced Features

Explore advanced language-specific features

Get Started

Core Features

Commands

Configuration

Advanced Usage

Changing Language

Supported Languages

English

European

Asian

Middle Eastern

African

Language Configuration

Commit Message Examples

Conventional Commit Prefixes

How It Works

Best Practices

Viewing Current Language

Configuration File

Changing Language Manually

Language-Specific Features

Date Formats

Number Formats

Fallback Behavior

Code Analysis Language

Troubleshooting

Regional Variants

English

Chinese

Next Steps

API Keys

Default Settings

Usage Guide

Advanced Features

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Get Started

Core Features

Commands

Configuration

Advanced Usage

​Changing Language

​Supported Languages

English

European

Asian

Middle Eastern

African

​Language Configuration

​Commit Message Examples

​Conventional Commit Prefixes

​How It Works

​Best Practices

​Viewing Current Language

​Configuration File

​Changing Language Manually

​Language-Specific Features

​Date Formats

​Number Formats

​Fallback Behavior

​Code Analysis Language

​Troubleshooting

​Regional Variants

​English

​Chinese

​Next Steps

API Keys

Default Settings

Usage Guide

Advanced Features

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Changing Language

Supported Languages

Language Configuration

Commit Message Examples

Conventional Commit Prefixes

How It Works

Best Practices

Viewing Current Language

Configuration File

Changing Language Manually

Language-Specific Features

Date Formats

Number Formats

Fallback Behavior

Code Analysis Language

Troubleshooting

Regional Variants

English

Chinese

Next Steps