git-credential(1)

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

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