[...]
Introduce the first such new subcommand, which is "git config list". To
retain backwards compatibility we only conditionally use subcommands and
will fall back to the old syntax in case no subcommand was detected.
This should help to transition to the new-style syntax until we
eventually deprecate and remove the old-style syntax.
[...]
Signed-off-by: Patrick Steinhardt <redacted>
---

diff --git a/builtin/config.c b/builtin/config.c

@@ -761,6 +811,22 @@ int cmd_config(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
+       /*
+        * This is somewhat hacky: we first parse the command line while
+        * keeping all args intact in order to determine whether a subcommand
+        * has been specified. If so, we re-parse it a second time, but this
+        * time we drop KEEP_ARGV0. This is so that we don't munge the command
+        * line in case no subcommand was given, which would otherwise confuse
+        * us when parsing the implicit modes.
+        */
+       argc = parse_options(argc, argv, prefix, builtin_subcommand_options, builtin_config_usage,

diff --git a/t/t1300-config.sh b/t/t1300-config.sh

@@ -11,6 +11,21 @@ export GIT_TEST_DEFAULT_INITIAL_BRANCH_NAME
+for mode in legacy subcommands
+do
+
+case "$mode" in
+legacy)
+       mode_prefix="--"
+       ;;
+subcommands)
+       mode_prefix=""
+       ;;
+*)
+       echo "unknown mode $mode" >&2
+       exit 1;;
+esac

@@ -527,6 +542,7 @@ test_expect_success 'editing stdin is an error' '
 test_expect_success 'refer config from subdirectory' '
+       test_when_finished "rm -r x" &&
        mkdir x &&
        test_cmp_config -C x strasse --file=../other-config --get ein.bahn
 '

@@ -1072,6 +1088,7 @@ test_expect_success 'inner whitespace kept verbatim' '
 test_expect_success SYMLINKS 'symlinked configuration' '
+       test_when_finished "rm myconfig" &&
        ln -s notyet myconfig &&
        git config --file=myconfig test.frotz nitfol &&
        test -h myconfig &&