NAME

       git-credential - Retrieve and store user credentials

SYNOPSIS

       git credential <fill|approve|reject>

DESCRIPTION

       Git has an internal interface for storing and retrieving credentials from system-specific
       helpers, as well as prompting the user for usernames and passwords. The git-credential
       command exposes this interface to scripts which may want to retrieve, store, or prompt for
       credentials in the same manner as Git. The design of this scriptable interface models the
       internal C API; see the Git credential API[1] for more background on the concepts.

       git-credential takes an "action" option on the command-line (one of fill, approve, or
       reject) and reads a credential description on stdin (see INPUT/OUTPUT FORMAT).

       If the action is fill, git-credential will attempt to add "username" and "password"
       attributes to the description by reading config files, by contacting any configured
       credential helpers, or by prompting the user. The username and password attributes of the
       credential description are then printed to stdout together with the attributes already
       provided.

       If the action is approve, git-credential will send the description to any configured
       credential helpers, which may store the credential for later use.

       If the action is reject, git-credential will send the description to any configured
       credential helpers, which may erase any stored credential matching the description.

       If the action is approve or reject, no output should be emitted.

TYPICAL USE OF GIT CREDENTIAL

       An application using git-credential will typically use git credential following these
       steps:

        1. Generate a credential description based on the context.

           For example, if we want a password for https://example.com/foo.git, we might generate
           the following credential description (don’t forget the blank line at the end; it tells
           git credential that the application finished feeding all the information it has):

               protocol=https
               host=example.com
               path=foo.git

        2. Ask git-credential to give us a username and password for this description. This is
           done by running git credential fill, feeding the description from step (1) to its
           standard input. The complete credential description (including the credential per se,
           i.e. the login and password) will be produced on standard output, like:

               protocol=https
               host=example.com
               username=bob
               password=secr3t

           In most cases, this means the attributes given in the input will be repeated in the
           output, but Git may also modify the credential description, for example by removing
           the path attribute when the protocol is HTTP(s) and credential.useHttpPath is false.

           If the git credential knew about the password, this step may not have involved the
           user actually typing this password (the user may have typed a password to unlock the
           keychain instead, or no user interaction was done if the keychain was already
           unlocked) before it returned password=secr3t.

        3. Use the credential (e.g., access the URL with the username and password from step
           (2)), and see if it’s accepted.

        4. Report on the success or failure of the password. If the credential allowed the
           operation to complete successfully, then it can be marked with an "approve" action to
           tell git credential to reuse it in its next invocation. If the credential was rejected
           during the operation, use the "reject" action so that git credential will ask for a
           new password in its next invocation. In either case, git credential should be fed with
           the credential description obtained from step (2) (which also contain the ones
           provided in step (1)).

INPUT/OUTPUT FORMAT

       git credential reads and/or writes (depending on the action used) credential information
       in its standard input/output. This information can correspond either to keys for which git
       credential will obtain the login/password information (e.g. host, protocol, path), or to
       the actual credential data to be obtained (login/password).

       The credential is split into a set of named attributes, with one attribute per line. Each
       attribute is specified by a key-value pair, separated by an = (equals) sign, followed by a
       newline. The key may contain any bytes except =, newline, or NUL. The value may contain
       any bytes except newline or NUL. In both cases, all bytes are treated as-is (i.e., there
       is no quoting, and one cannot transmit a value with newline or NUL in it). The list of
       attributes is terminated by a blank line or end-of-file. Git understands the following
       attributes:

       protocol
           The protocol over which the credential will be used (e.g., https).

       host
           The remote hostname for a network credential.

       path
           The path with which the credential will be used. E.g., for accessing a remote https
           repository, this will be the repository’s path on the server.

       username
           The credential’s username, if we already have one (e.g., from a URL, from the user, or
           from a previously run helper).

       password
           The credential’s password, if we are asking it to be stored.

       url
           When this special attribute is read by git credential, the value is parsed as a URL
           and treated as if its constituent parts were read (e.g., url=https://example.com would
           behave as if protocol=https and host=example.com had been provided). This can help
           callers avoid parsing URLs themselves. Note that any components which are missing from
           the URL (e.g., there is no username in the example above) will be set to empty; if you
           want to provide a URL and override some attributes, provide the URL attribute first,
           followed by any overrides.

NOTES

        1. the Git credential API
           file:///usr/share/doc/git/html/technical/api-credentials.html