A change to git-prompt.sh in v2.38 to show presence of unresolved conflicts contains syntax which is not valid under zsh < 5.0.6. This version of zsh is old, but is still the default on RedHat 7 machines, for example. The offending block is: local conflict="" # state indicator for unresolved conflicts if [[ "${GIT_PS1_SHOWCONFLICTSTATE}" == "yes" ]] && [[ $(git ls-files --unmerged 2>/dev/null) ]]; then conflict="|CONFLICT" fi [[ $(command) ]] syntax doesn't work in older version of zsh and should use [[ -n "$(command)" ]] instead. Thanks, Vitaly