When you prefer a terminal based workflow, and you want a bit more than the standard git cli (or any aliases you may have setup to make life easier), lazygit is hands down my favorite tool to work with. Please read the elevator pitch, then give it a try.

However, there is one feature that did not seem to work for me in WSL, until today that is.

The Problem

When using lazygit in WSL, the create pull request feature (shortcut o when on branch view) typically fails because WSL doesn’t have direct access to graphical applications. The xdg-open command, which lazygit uses to open URLs, doesn’t work out of the box in WSL.

The Solution

We’ll create a custom script that intercepts xdg-open calls and redirects them to the Windows host system. This allows us to open pull requests in the default Windows browser directly from lazygit.

Implementation

Step 1: Create the WSL-Open Script

First, we’ll create a script that acts as a bridge between WSL and Windows:

sudo hx /usr/local/bin/wsl-open

Add the following content:

#!/bin/bash

url="$1"

# Don't convert slashes for http/https URLs
if [[ "$url" == http* ]]; then
    # For web URLs, use the original URL without modification
    # Just escape single quotes for PowerShell
    escaped_url=$(echo "$url" | sed "s/'/''/g")
    powershell.exe -c "Start-Process '$escaped_url'"
else
    # For file paths, convert to Windows format
    winpath=$(echo "$url" | sed 's/\//\\/g')
    escaped_url=$(echo "$winpath" | sed "s/'/''/g")
    powershell.exe -c "Start-Process '$escaped_url'"
fi

Remember to make the script executable:

sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/wsl-open

Step 2: Configure XDG-MIME

XDG-MIME is part of the XDG (X Desktop Group) standards, which are a set of freedesktop.org specifications for Unix-like operating systems, particularly Linux desktop environments. It is a command line tool for querying information about file type handling and adding descriptions for new file types.

Let’s set wsl-open, the script we created in the previous step, as the default handler for HTTP(S) URLs:

xdg-mime default wsl-open.desktop x-scheme-handler/http
xdg-mime default wsl-open.desktop x-scheme-handler/https

Step 3: Create a Desktop Entry

Create a .desktop file for our wsl-open script:

sudo hx /usr/share/applications/wsl-open.desktop

Add the following content, notice that we are using a placeholder %u for our URL which will be passed to the script when the desktop file is executed:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=WSL Open
Exec=/usr/local/bin/wsl-open %u
Type=Application
Terminal=false
MimeType=x-scheme-handler/http;x-scheme-handler/https;

Step 4: Update XDG Settings

Set wsl-open as the default web browser for xdg-open:

xdg-settings set default-web-browser wsl-open.desktop

Step 5: Configure Environment Variables

Add the following to your ~/.bashrc:

export BROWSER=/usr/local/bin/wsl-open

The line sets the default browser for the WSL environment to your custom wsl-open script. This ensures that when a program in WSL tries to open a URL, it uses your script, which in turn passes the URL to the Windows host system.

Run source ~/.bashrc to apply changes.

Testing the Setup

To test, run:

xdg-open "https://github.com/"

This should open the URL in your default Windows browser.

Integration with Lazygit

With this setup in place, lazygit’s ‘open pull request’ feature should now work seamlessly. When you select the option to open a pull request, lazygit will use xdg-open, which in turn calls our wsl-open script, opening the pull request URL in your Windows browser.

Conclusion

This solution bridges the gap between WSL and Windows, allowing for a small productivity gain when working with Git and pull requests. It’s particularly useful for developers who prefer terminal-based Git clients but still need the ability to quickly review and manage pull requests in a browser.