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+---
+title: "MacOS: Opening Git commit prompt in active GUI editor"
+date: 2025-01-29
+extra:
+  kind: note
+---
+
+This is a quick, neat thing I happened to find on accident. As a result of the application bundle system that MacOS uses ubiquitously, you can figure out the currently open application with the `__CFBundleIdentifier` environment variable.
+
+```bash
+$ echo $__CFBundleIdentifier
+dev.zed.Zed
+```
+
+This bundle identifier uniquely identifies an installed application.
+
+Many editors or IDEs (Zed in my example) allow you to open an integrated terminal. It can be convenient to use that same graphical editor as the `$EDITOR` for commands like `git commit` or `git rebase -i` instead of using `vim` or `nano` or some other TUI editor inside the integrated terminal.
+
+Use it like this:
+
+```bash
+# $HOME/.zshrc
+
+if [ "$__CFBundleIdentifier" = "dev.zed.Zed" ]; then
+  export EDITOR="zed -w"
+elif [ "$__CFBundleIdentifier" = "com.jetbrains.intellij" ]; then
+  export EDITOR="idea --wait"
+fi
+```
+
+Alternatively, if your editor supports setting custom environment variables for the integrated terminal, you can do that and avoid having the if-else in your shell rc. I prefer to have all my environment shenanigans in one place so I chose not to follow that route.
+
+Note that your editor must support a flag like `-w` or `--wait` that blocks the editor command from exiting before you close the file. If you don't do that, you will see stuff like:
+
+```bash
+$ git commit
+Aborting commit due to empty commit message
+```