# gitcredentials(7) Manual Page

## 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 the documentation for Git’s credentials API for details.

## GIT

Part of the git(1) suite