Making cgit Pretty

| linux | devops |

Previously I wrote about how to install and configure cgit on Debian. If you have followed that short guide you now have a kick ass cgit install running on your server. So whats next? A bare cgit installation is pretty dull and there are some neat built in features that should be enabled for an optimal user experience. Open up /etc/cgitrc and made the following additions.

Configure Default README

You can set the default README for all repos by adding the following line. readme=master:README.md This will tell cgit to look for the README.md file in your master branch for the default README for a given project.

Add an about filter

You can add an about filter which will add the about tab to your projects and display the README file configured in the previous step.about-filter=/usr/lib/cgit/filters/about-formatting.sh Assuming that you have a README.md file in your master branch you will now see it in the about tab of your project.

Enable Syntax Highlighting

This is a no brainer. Adding syntax highlighting makes your code easier to look at on the website. This takes a few steps. First install the highlight package with sudo apt-get install highlight . Next, open up/usr/lib/cgit/filters/syntax-highlighting.sh and uncomment the last line that reads exec highlight --force -f -I -O xhtml -S "$EXTENSION" 2>/dev/null Next, open up your stylesheet which should be found inusr/share/cgit/cgit.css and add the following sections.
# Style definition file generated by highlight 2.4.8, http://www.andre-simon.de/ 
table.blob .num { color:#2928ff; } 
table.blob .esc { color:#ff00ff; } 
table.blob .str { color:#ff0000; } 
table.blob .dstr { color:#818100; } 
table.blob .slc { color:#838183; font-style:italic; } 
table.blob .com { color:#838183; font-style:italic; } 
table.blob .dir { color:#008200; } 
table.blob .sym { color:#000000; } 
table.blob .kwa { color:#000000; font-weight:bold; } 
table.blob .kwb { color:#830000; } 
table.blob .kwc { color:#000000; font-weight:bold; } 
table.blob .kwd { color:#010181; }  

# Style definition file generated by highlight 3.13, http://www.andre-simon.de/

body.hl { background-color:#e0eaee; }
pre.hl { color:#000000; background-color:#e0eaee;
font-size:10pt;
font-family:‘Courier New’,monospace;}
.hl.num { color:#b07e00; }
.hl.esc { color:#ff00ff; }
.hl.str { color:#bf0303; }
.hl.pps { color:#818100; }
.hl.slc { color:#838183; font-style:italic; }
.hl.com { color:#838183; font-style:italic; }
.hl.ppc { color:#008200; }
.hl.opt { color:#000000; }
.hl.ipl { color:#0057ae; }
.hl.lin { color:#555555; }
.hl.kwa { color:#000000; font-weight:bold; }
.hl.kwb { color:#0057ae; }
.hl.kwc { color:#000000; font-weight:bold; }
.hl.kwd { color:#010181; }

Lastly, add this to your configuration file to enable syntax highlighting.
source-filter=/usr/lib/cgit/filters/syntax-highlighting.sh
Since most of my repos look the same I configured these settings globally. You can also configure this at a per-repo level if you simply add any of theses sections to your specific repo settings. For example if you have a different README format such as README.rst for a repo called “my-repo” Then your configuration for that specfic repo would look something like this:
repo.url=my-repo 
repo.path=/srv/git/my-repo.git 
repo.readme=master:README.rst 
repo.about-filter=/usr/lib/cgit/filters/about-formatting.sh 
repo.desc=The best repo ever 
repo.owner=Your Name
Now you have a super fast git repo web viewer and it has a couple of bells and whistles as well.

Thank you for reading! Share your thoughts with me on bluesky, mastodon, or via email.

Check out some more stuff to read down below.

Most popular posts this month

Recent Favorite Blog Posts

This is a collection of the last 8 posts that I bookmarked.

Articles from blogs I follow around the net

My last 5 books - July 2026 edition

My last 5 books - July 2026 edition This is a new feature in which I will copy and paste my recent book reviews from my books page These are the last 5 books I have read. I will update in a month or 2 when I've read 5 more. I'm Starting to Worry About this...

via O'DonnellWeb July 12, 2026

“Animating something and animating something well are two very different things.”

From Jakub Krehel, a new blog post about self constraint in the era when AI makes it easy to ignore constraints altogether. My caveat is that the post doesn’t fully come together for me – jumping from AI to animations and then back to AI the way the author...

via Unsung July 12, 2026

Generated and suppressed demand.

Eight years ago, I wrote about my theory of restoring struggling teams, which came down to four steps: A team is falling behind if each week their backlog is longer than the week before. Solve by hiring more. A team is treading water if they’re able to get...

via Irrational Exuberance July 11, 2026

Generated by openring