Make comments in the default config file more informative

[bartekpacia]

If this info was there, it would save me a minute :)

[cliAutomation]

Hi! Thanks for the pull request. Please ensure that this change is linked to an issue by mentioning an issue number in the description of the pull request. If this pull request would close the issue, please put the word 'Fixes' before the issue number somewhere in the pull request body. If this is a tiny change like fixing a typo, feel free to ignore this message.

[williammartin]

Thanks for opening this PR @bartekpacia!

Clearly you ran into some difficulties here so we should definitely make a change. However, I've noted why the changes aren't quite right. Do you think it would have helped you if the default config file had included "run gh environment for more information"?

[williammartin]

This isn't quite right. If you look at gh environment you will see what actually happens:

`GH_EDITOR`, `GIT_EDITOR`, `VISUAL`, `EDITOR` (in order of precedence): the editor tool to use
for authoring text.

[williammartin]

This isn't quite right. If you look at gh environment you will see what actually happens:

`GH_PAGER`, `PAGER` (in order of precedence): a terminal paging program to send standard output
to, e.g. `less`.

[bartekpacia]

Thanks for a very fast review @williammartin! I agree with you, it makes more sense to suggest users to run gh environment to avoid duplicating information. I, for once, was not aware of gh environment's existence (it's apparently a hidden command).

I applied the changes. However I noticed I don't understand what this line means:

When to interactively prompt. This is a global config that cannot be overridden by hostname. Supported values: enabled, disabled
prompt: enabled

in particular I mean this sentence: This is a global config that cannot be overridden by hostname.. Could you explain? I'd like to make it easier to understand in this PR, while we're at it.

Last but not least, thank you for work on this awesome, nifty CLI tool.

[williammartin]

I, for once, was not aware of gh environment's existence (it's apparently a hidden command).

huh. That's interesting. So, I see that it doesn't appear if you misspell a command but it should appear if you run gh alone under the HELP TOPICS section:

HELP TOPICS
  actions:     Learn about working with GitHub Actions
  environment: Environment variables that can be used with gh
  exit-codes:  Exit codes used by gh
  formatting:  Formatting options for JSON data exported from gh
  mintty:      Information about using gh with MinTTY
  reference:   A comprehensive reference of all gh commands

in particular I mean this sentence: This is a global config that cannot be overridden by hostname.. Could you explain? I'd like to make it easier to understand in this PR, while we're at it.

Right so you can set config using the gh config command. By default it will configure the contents of the config.yml file. However, you can also provide the --hostname flag and the configuration will be set in the hosts.yml file. This means you can say "hey, I want to use SSH by default as the git_protocol but on this host I want to use HTTPS". In the case of prompting, allowing host override doesn't make much sense.

Last but not least, thank you for work on this awesome, nifty CLI tool.

Glad you like it! Thank you for helping us improve it!

[bartekpacia]

ah, so I just didn't notice gh environment - my bad. And thanks for explaining. Is this sort of explanation documented somewhere in the gh tool?

[williammartin]

LGTM!

[williammartin]

Well, if you go to the manual you will see:

To set your preferred editor, use gh config set editor . Read more about gh config and environment variables.

I have to say this sentence is probably a jillion years old and could do with being updated to be less "editor" specific 😅

It seems like the gh config command could use a bit more detail in the top level description about the env var -> host config -> global config -> default fallback precedence.