Launch SourceTree from MacOS terminal?

Question

I had set up an alias in Terminal to open sourcetree for the current-working-directory's reposotory:

$ alias st
alias st='open -a /Applications/SourceTree.app '
$ st .

... which would then launch sourcetree for whichever project I happen to be in. I have found this far, far more convenient than sourcetree's repo browser.

After upgrading to sourcetree 3.0, this no longer works. I can launch it with:

/Applications/Sourcetree.app/Contents/MacOS/Sourcetree .

... however, this doesn't fork/exit, meaning I can no longer continue to use that terminal for other work, which isn't very convenient. Also, it launches multiple copies of SourceTree. Though thankfully ST is not a memory hog (like certain Electron-based developer-targeted productivity apps that I will not name...), it still leaves multiple copies of the app in the Dock, with no indication about which relates to which launched instance.

Are there any other 'launch current repo in sourcetree' shortcuts I'm missing that might work reasonably?

matthewf_ucsd · Answer

After updating, stree still did not work.

It seems the problem is that I only ran "Check For Updates" once: Doing so installed SourceTree 3.0, rather than the most recent version. A subsequent check-for-updates brought me to 3.2, and a third to 3.2.1.

Now both stree and my previous alias work. Phew!

NB: stree seems to have an inaccurate version number, though I won't complain as long as it works.

$ stree --version

stree version 1.3

bgannin · Answer

Hi @matthewf_ucsd,

You can install a command line tool (stree) provided with the app. The menu item (Install Command Line Tools) is under the application menu. The latest version available is 3.2.1 and has been verified with all standard ways of launching.

Hope that helps,

Brian Ganninger
Principal Developer, Sourcetree