gitcredentials

GITCREDENTIALS(7)                 Git Manual                 GITCREDENTIALS(7)

NAME
       gitcredentials - providing usernames and passwords to Git

SYNOPSIS
       git config credential.https://example.com.username myusername
       git config credential.helper "$helper $options"

DESCRIPTION
       Git will sometimes need credentials from the user in order to perform
       operations; for example, it may need to ask for a username and password
       in order to access a remote repository over HTTP. This manual describes
       the mechanisms Git uses to request these credentials, as well as some
       features to avoid inputting these credentials repeatedly.

REQUESTING CREDENTIALS
       Without any credential helpers defined, Git will try the following
       strategies to ask the user for usernames and passwords:

        1. If the GIT_ASKPASS environment variable is set, the program
           specified by the variable is invoked. A suitable prompt is provided
           to the program on the command line, and the user's input is read
           from its standard output.

        2. Otherwise, if the core.askPass configuration variable is set, its
           value is used as above.

        3. Otherwise, if the SSH_ASKPASS environment variable is set, its
           value is used as above.

        4. Otherwise, the user is prompted on the terminal.

AVOIDING REPETITION
       It can be cumbersome to input the same credentials over and over. Git
       provides two methods to reduce this annoyance:

        1. Static configuration of usernames for a given authentication
           context.

        2. Credential helpers to cache or store passwords, or to interact with
           a system password wallet or keychain.

       The first is simple and appropriate if you do not have secure storage
       available for a password. It is generally configured by adding this to
       your config:

           [credential "https://example.com"]
                   username = me

       Credential helpers, on the other hand, are external programs from which
       Git can request both usernames and passwords; they typically interface
       with secure storage provided by the OS or other programs.

       To use a helper, you must first select one to use. Git currently
       includes the following helpers:

       cache
           Cache credentials in memory for a short period of time. See git-
           credential-cache(1) for details.

       store
           Store credentials indefinitely on disk. See git-credential-store(1)
           for details.

       You may also have third-party helpers installed; search for
       credential-* in the output of git help -a, and consult the
       documentation of individual helpers. Once you have selected a helper,
       you can tell Git to use it by putting its name into the
       credential.helper variable.

        1. Find a helper.

               $ git help -a | grep credential-
               credential-foo

        2. Read its description.

               $ git help credential-foo

        3. Tell Git to use it.

               $ git config --global credential.helper foo

CREDENTIAL CONTEXTS
       Git considers each credential to have a context defined by a URL. This
       context is used to look up context-specific configuration, and is
       passed to any helpers, which may use it as an index into secure
       storage.

       For instance, imagine we are accessing https://example.com/foo.git.
       When Git looks into a config file to see if a section matches this
       context, it will consider the two a match if the context is a
       more-specific subset of the pattern in the config file. For example, if
       you have this in your config file:

           [credential "https://example.com"]
                   username = foo

       then we will match: both protocols are the same, both hosts are the
       same, and the "pattern" URL does not care about the path component at
       all. However, this context would not match:

           [credential "https://kernel.org"]
                   username = foo

       because the hostnames differ. Nor would it match foo.example.com; Git
       compares hostnames exactly, without considering whether two hosts are
       part of the same domain. Likewise, a config entry for
       http://example.com would not match: Git compares the protocols exactly.

       If the "pattern" URL does include a path component, then this too must
       match exactly: the context https://example.com/bar/baz.git will match a
       config entry for https://example.com/bar/baz.git (in addition to
       matching the config entry for https://example.com) but will not match a
       config entry for https://example.com/bar.

CONFIGURATION OPTIONS
       Options for a credential context can be configured either in
       credential.* (which applies to all credentials), or credential.<url>.*,
       where <url> matches the context as described above.

       The following options are available in either location:

       helper
           The name of an external credential helper, and any associated
           options. If the helper name is not an absolute path, then the
           string git credential- is prepended. The resulting string is
           executed by the shell (so, for example, setting this to foo
           --option=bar will execute git credential-foo --option=bar via the
           shell. See the manual of specific helpers for examples of their
           use.

           If there are multiple instances of the credential.helper
           configuration variable, each helper will be tried in turn, and may
           provide a username, password, or nothing. Once Git has acquired
           both a username and a password, no more helpers will be tried.

           If credential.helper is configured to the empty string, this resets
           the helper list to empty (so you may override a helper set by a
           lower-priority config file by configuring the empty-string helper,
           followed by whatever set of helpers you would like).

       username
           A default username, if one is not provided in the URL.

       useHttpPath
           By default, Git does not consider the "path" component of an http
           URL to be worth matching via external helpers. This means that a
           credential stored for https://example.com/foo.git will also be used
           for https://example.com/bar.git. If you do want to distinguish
           these cases, set this option to true.

CUSTOM HELPERS
       You can write your own custom helpers to interface with any system in
       which you keep credentials. See credential.h for details.

GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite

Git 2.25.1                        04/26/2023                 GITCREDENTIALS(7)