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GIT-CREDENTIAL(1)                 Git Manual                 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-1.8.3.1/technical/api-credentials.txt

Git 1.8.3.1                       07/30/2024                 GIT-CREDENTIAL(1)