Configuration

GitWand is configured via a .gitwandrc file at the root of your repository, or via a "gitwand" key in package.json.

File Format

{
  "policy": "prefer-safety",
  "patterns": {
    "*.lock": "prefer-theirs",
    "package.json": "prefer-theirs",
    "src/**/*.ts": "prefer-ours"
  }
}

Policies

A policy controls how aggressively GitWand auto-resolves conflicts.

Policy	Behavior	Min Confidence
prefer-ours	Ambiguous choices resolve to ours	high
prefer-theirs	Ambiguous choices resolve to theirs (default)	high
prefer-merge	Resolve as much as possible	medium
prefer-safety	Only resolve very safe conflicts; skip whitespace and value-only	high
strict	Only same_change, one_side_change, and delete_no_change	certain

Policy Details

prefer-ours

• Whitespace conflicts: ours
• Value-only conflicts: ours
• Non-overlapping: allowed

prefer-theirs (default)

• Whitespace conflicts: theirs
• Value-only conflicts: theirs
• Non-overlapping: allowed

prefer-merge

• Lower confidence threshold (medium)
• All resolution types enabled
• Most aggressive — resolves the most conflicts

prefer-safety

• Disables whitespace-only and value-only resolution
• Non-overlapping: allowed
• Conservative — only resolves unambiguous conflicts

strict

• Only the three safest conflict types
• Requires certain confidence
• Disables whitespace, value-only, and non-overlapping resolution

Pattern Overrides

Use glob patterns to apply different policies to specific files:

{
  "policy": "prefer-safety",
  "patterns": {
    "*.lock": "prefer-theirs",
    "package.json": "prefer-theirs",
    "src/**/*.ts": "prefer-ours",
    "*.md": "prefer-merge"
  }
}

Glob Syntax

Pattern	Matches
*	Any character except /
**	Any character including /
?	Exactly one character except /

• If a pattern has no /, it matches on the basename only (e.g., *.lock matches path/to/yarn.lock)
• If a pattern contains /, it matches on the full path (e.g., src/**/*.ts)

Priority

When multiple patterns match a file:

1. Most specific pattern (longest match) wins
2. Falls back to the global policy
3. Falls back to DEFAULT_POLICY ("prefer-theirs")

Confidence Levels

The minConfidence setting (set implicitly by each policy) controls the minimum confidence score required for auto-resolution:

Level	Score Threshold	Description
certain	≥ 92	Only resolve when classification is near-certain
high	≥ 68	Resolve when classification is confident
medium	≥ 44	Resolve with moderate confidence
low	< 44	Resolve even uncertain classifications

VS Code Extension Settings

When using the VS Code extension, you can also configure via VS Code settings:

Setting	Default	Description
gitwand.resolveWhitespace	true	Resolve whitespace-only conflicts
gitwand.minConfidence	"high"	Minimum confidence for auto-resolution

These settings apply in addition to .gitwandrc. The more restrictive setting wins.