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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.
However, you may use wildcards in the domain name and other pattern matching techniques as
with the http.<url>.* options.
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.
Credential helpers are programs executed by Git to fetch or save credentials from and to
long-term storage (where "long-term" is simply longer than a single Git process; e.g.,
credentials may be stored in-memory for a few minutes, or indefinitely on disk).
Each helper is specified by a single string in the configuration variable
credential.helper (and others, see git-config(1)). The string is transformed by Git into a
command to be executed using these rules:
1. If the helper string begins with "!", it is considered a shell snippet, and everything
after the "!" becomes the command.
2. Otherwise, if the helper string begins with an absolute path, the verbatim helper
string becomes the command.
3. Otherwise, the string "git credential-" is prepended to the helper string, and the
result becomes the command.
The resulting command then has an "operation" argument appended to it (see below for
details), and the result is executed by the shell.
Here are some example specifications:
# run "git credential-foo"
[credential]
helper = foo
# same as above, but pass an argument to the helper
[credential]
helper = "foo --bar=baz"
# the arguments are parsed by the shell, so use shell
# quoting if necessary
[credential]
helper = "foo --bar='whitespace arg'"
# you can also use an absolute path, which will not use the git wrapper
[credential]
helper = "/path/to/my/helper --with-arguments"
# or you can specify your own shell snippet
[credential "https://example.com"]
username = your_user
helper = "!f() { test \"$1\" = get && echo \"password=$(cat $HOME/.secret)\"; }; f"
Generally speaking, rule (3) above is the simplest for users to specify. Authors of
credential helpers should make an effort to assist their users by naming their program
"git-credential-$NAME", and putting it in the $PATH or $GIT_EXEC_PATH during installation,
which will allow a user to enable it with git config credential.helper $NAME.
When a helper is executed, it will have one "operation" argument appended to its command
line, which is one of:
get
Return a matching credential, if any exists.
store
Store the credential, if applicable to the helper.
erase
Remove a matching credential, if any, from the helper's storage.
The details of the credential will be provided on the helper's stdin stream. The exact
format is the same as the input/output format of the git credential plumbing command (see
the section INPUT/OUTPUT FORMAT in git-credential(1) for a detailed specification).
For a get operation, the helper should produce a list of attributes on stdout in the same
format (see git-credential(1) for common attributes). A helper is free to produce a
subset, or even no values at all if it has nothing useful to provide. Any provided
attributes will overwrite those already known about by Git's credential subsystem.
While it is possible to override all attributes, well behaving helpers should refrain from
doing so for any attribute other than username and password.
If a helper outputs a quit attribute with a value of true or 1, no further helpers will be
consulted, nor will the user be prompted (if no credential has been provided, the
operation will then fail).
Similarly, no more helpers will be consulted once both username and password had been
provided.
For a store or erase operation, the helper's output is ignored.
If a helper fails to perform the requested operation or needs to notify the user of a
potential issue, it may write to stderr.
If it does not support the requested operation (e.g., a read-only store), it should
silently ignore the request.
If a helper receives any other operation, it should silently ignore the request. This
leaves room for future operations to be added (older helpers will just ignore the new
requests).
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
Git 2.34.1 07/09/2025 GITCREDENTIALS(7)
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