1GIT-CREDENTIAL(1) Git Manual GIT-CREDENTIAL(1)
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6 git-credential - Retrieve and store user credentials
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9 git credential <fill|approve|reject>
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13 Git has an internal interface for storing and retrieving credentials
14 from system-specific helpers, as well as prompting the user for
15 usernames and passwords. The git-credential command exposes this
16 interface to scripts which may want to retrieve, store, or prompt for
17 credentials in the same manner as Git. The design of this scriptable
18 interface models the internal C API; see the Git credential API[1] for
19 more background on the concepts.
20 git-credential takes an "action" option on the command-line (one of
22 fill, approve, or reject) and reads a credential description on stdin
23 (see INPUT/OUTPUT FORMAT).
24 If the action is fill, git-credential will attempt to add "username"
26 and "password" attributes to the description by reading config files,
27 by contacting any configured credential helpers, or by prompting the
28 user. The username and password attributes of the credential
29 description are then printed to stdout together with the attributes
30 already provided.
31 If the action is approve, git-credential will send the description to
33 any configured credential helpers, which may store the credential for
34 later use.
35 If the action is reject, git-credential will send the description to
37 any configured credential helpers, which may erase any stored
38 credential matching the description.
39 If the action is approve or reject, no output should be emitted.
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43 An application using git-credential will typically use git credential
44 following these steps:
45 1. Generate a credential description based on the context.
47 For example, if we want a password for https://example.com/foo.git,
49 we might generate the following credential description (don’t
50 forget the blank line at the end; it tells git credential that the
51 application finished feeding all the information it has):
52 protocol=https
54 host=example.com
55 path=foo.git
56 2. Ask git-credential to give us a username and password for this
58 description. This is done by running git credential fill, feeding
59 the description from step (1) to its standard input. The complete
60 credential description (including the credential per se, i.e. the
61 login and password) will be produced on standard output, like:
62 protocol=https
64 host=example.com
65 username=bob
66 password=secr3t
67 In most cases, this means the attributes given in the input will be
69 repeated in the output, but Git may also modify the credential
70 description, for example by removing the path attribute when the
71 protocol is HTTP(s) and credential.useHttpPath is false.
72 If the git credential knew about the password, this step may not
74 have involved the user actually typing this password (the user may
75 have typed a password to unlock the keychain instead, or no user
76 interaction was done if the keychain was already unlocked) before
77 it returned password=secr3t.
78 3. Use the credential (e.g., access the URL with the username and
80 password from step (2)), and see if it’s accepted.
81 4. Report on the success or failure of the password. If the credential
83 allowed the operation to complete successfully, then it can be
84 marked with an "approve" action to tell git credential to reuse it
85 in its next invocation. If the credential was rejected during the
86 operation, use the "reject" action so that git credential will ask
87 for a new password in its next invocation. In either case, git
88 credential should be fed with the credential description obtained
89 from step (2) (which also contain the ones provided in step (1)).
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92 git credential reads and/or writes (depending on the action used)
93 credential information in its standard input/output. This information
94 can correspond either to keys for which git credential will obtain the
95 login/password information (e.g. host, protocol, path), or to the
96 actual credential data to be obtained (login/password).
97 The credential is split into a set of named attributes, with one
99 attribute per line. Each attribute is specified by a key-value pair,
100 separated by an = (equals) sign, followed by a newline. The key may
101 contain any bytes except =, newline, or NUL. The value may contain any
102 bytes except newline or NUL. In both cases, all bytes are treated as-is
103 (i.e., there is no quoting, and one cannot transmit a value with
104 newline or NUL in it). The list of attributes is terminated by a blank
105 line or end-of-file. Git understands the following attributes:
106 protocol
108 The protocol over which the credential will be used (e.g., https).
109 host
111 The remote hostname for a network credential.
112 path
114 The path with which the credential will be used. E.g., for
115 accessing a remote https repository, this will be the repository’s
116 path on the server.
117 username
119 The credential’s username, if we already have one (e.g., from a
120 URL, from the user, or from a previously run helper).
121 password
123 The credential’s password, if we are asking it to be stored.
124 url
126 When this special attribute is read by git credential, the value is
127 parsed as a URL and treated as if its constituent parts were read
128 (e.g., url=https://example.com would behave as if protocol=https
129 and host=example.com had been provided). This can help callers
130 avoid parsing URLs themselves. Note that any components which are
131 missing from the URL (e.g., there is no username in the example
132 above) will be set to empty; if you want to provide a URL and
133 override some attributes, provide the URL attribute first, followed
134 by any overrides.
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137 1. the Git credential API
138 file:///usr/share/doc/git/technical/api-credentials.html
139Git 2.24.1 12/10/2019 GIT-CREDENTIAL(1)