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

       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.

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.

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.

       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[1] for details.

GIT

       Part of the git(1) suite

NOTES

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