Configuration options

Git Credential Manager works out of the box for most users.

Git Credential Manager (GCM) can be configured using Git's configuration files, and follows all of the same rules Git does when consuming the files.

Global configuration settings override system configuration settings, and local configuration settings override global settings; and because the configuration details exist within Git's configuration files you can use Git's git config utility to set, unset, and alter the setting values. All of GCM's configuration settings begin with the term credential.

GCM honors several levels of settings, in addition to the standard local > global > system tiering Git uses. URL-specific settings or overrides can be applied to any value in the credential namespace with the syntax below.

Additionally, GCM respects several GCM-specific environment variables which take precedence over configuration options. System administrators may also configure default values for many settings used by GCM.

GCM will only be used by Git if it is installed and configured. Use git config --global credential.helper manager to assign GCM as your credential helper. Use git config credential.helper to see the current configuration.

Example:

credential.microsoft.visualstudio.com.namespace is more specific than credential.visualstudio.com.namespace, which is more specific than credential.namespace.

In the examples above, the credential.namespace setting would affect any remote repository; the credential.visualstudio.com.namespace would affect any remote repository in the domain, and/or any subdomain (including www.) of, 'visualstudio.com'; where as the credential.microsoft.visualstudio.com.namespace setting would only be applied to remote repositories hosted at 'microsoft.visualstudio.com'.

For the complete list of settings GCM understands, see the list below.

Available settings

credential.interactive

Permit or disable GCM from interacting with the user (showing GUI or TTY prompts). If interaction is required but has been disabled, an error is returned.

This can be helpful when using GCM in headless and unattended environments, such as build servers, where it would be preferable to fail than to hang indefinitely waiting for a non-existent user.

To disable interactivity set this to false or 0.

Compatibility

In previous versions of GCM this setting had a different behavior and accepted other values. The following table summarizes the change in behavior and the mapping of older values such as never:

Example

git config --global credential.interactive false

Defaults to enabled.

Also see: GCM_INTERACTIVE

credential.trace

Enables trace logging of all activities. Configuring Git and GCM to trace to the same location is often desirable, and GCM is compatible and cooperative with GIT_TRACE.

Example

git config --global credential.trace /tmp/git.log

If the value of credential.trace is a full path to a file in an existing directory, logs are appended to the file.

If the value of credential.trace is true or 1, logs are written to standard error.

Defaults to disabled.

Also see: GCM_TRACE

credential.traceSecrets

Enables tracing of secret and sensitive information, which is by default masked in trace output. Requires that credential.trace is also enabled.

Example

git config --global credential.traceSecrets true

If the value of credential.traceSecrets is true or 1, trace logs will include secret information.

Defaults to disabled.

Also see: GCM_TRACE_SECRETS

credential.traceMsAuth

Enables inclusion of Microsoft Authentication library (MSAL) logs in GCM trace output. Requires that credential.trace is also enabled.

Example

git config --global credential.traceMsAuth true

If the value of credential.traceMsAuth is true or 1, trace logs will include verbose MSAL logs.

Defaults to disabled.

Also see: GCM_TRACE_MSAUTH

credential.debug

Pauses execution of GCM at launch to wait for a debugger to be attached.

Example

git config --global credential.debug true

Defaults to disabled.

Also see: GCM_DEBUG

credential.provider

Define the host provider to use when authenticating.

Automatic provider selection is based on the remote URL.

This setting is typically used with a scoped URL to map a particular set of remote URLs to providers, for example to mark a host as a GitHub Enterprise instance.

Example

git config --global credential.ghe.contoso.com.provider github

Also see: GCM_PROVIDER

credential.authority (deprecated)

This setting is deprecated and should be replaced by credential.provider with the corresponding provider ID value.

See the migration guide for more information.

Select the host provider to use when authenticating by which authority is supported by the providers.

Example

git config --global credential.ghe.contoso.com.authority github

Also see: GCM_AUTHORITY

credential.guiPrompt

Permit or disable GCM from presenting GUI prompts. If an equivalent terminal/ text-based prompt is available, that will be shown instead.

To disable all interactivity see credential.interactive.

Example

git config --global credential.guiPrompt false

Defaults to enabled.

Also see: GCM_GUI_PROMPT

credential.guiSoftwareRendering

Force the use of software rendering for GUI prompts.

This is currently only applicable on Windows.

Example

git config --global credential.guiSoftwareRendering true

Defaults to false (use hardware acceleration where available).

[!NOTE] Windows on ARM devices defaults to using software rendering to work around a known Avalonia issue: https://github.com/AvaloniaUI/Avalonia/issues/10405

Also see: GCM_GUI_SOFTWARE_RENDERING

credential.allowUnsafeRemotes

Allow transmitting credentials to unsafe remote URLs such as unencrypted HTTP URLs. This setting is not recommended for general use and should only be used when necessary.

Defaults false (disallow unsafe remote URLs).

Example

git config --global credential.allowUnsafeRemotes true

Also see: GCM_ALLOW_UNSAFE_REMOTES

credential.autoDetectTimeout

Set the maximum length of time, in milliseconds, that GCM should wait for a network response during host provider auto-detection probing.

See auto-detection for more information.

Note: Use a negative or zero value to disable probing altogether.

Defaults to 2000 milliseconds (2 seconds).

Example

git config --global credential.autoDetectTimeout -1

Also see: GCM_AUTODETECT_TIMEOUT

credential.allowWindowsAuth

Allow detection of Windows Integrated Authentication (WIA) support for generic host providers. Setting this value to false will prevent the use of WIA and force a basic authentication prompt when using the Generic host provider.

Note: WIA is only supported on Windows.

Note: WIA is an umbrella term for NTLM and Kerberos (and Negotiate).

Example

git config --global credential.tfsonprem123.allowWindowsAuth false

Also see: GCM_ALLOW_WINDOWSAUTH

credential.httpProxy (deprecated)

This setting is deprecated and should be replaced by the standard http.proxy Git configuration option.

See HTTP Proxy for more information.

Configure GCM to use the a proxy for network operations.

Note: Git itself does not respect this setting; this affects GCM only.

Example

git config --global credential.httpsProxy http://john.doe:[email protected]

Also see: GCM_HTTP_PROXY

credential.bitbucketAuthModes

Override the available authentication modes presented during Bitbucket authentication. If this option is not set, then the available authentication modes will be automatically detected.

Note: This setting only applies to Bitbucket.org, and not Server or DC instances.

Note: This setting supports multiple values separated by commas.

Example

git config --global credential.bitbucketAuthModes "oauth,basic"

Also see: GCM_BITBUCKET_AUTHMODES

credential.bitbucketAlwaysRefreshCredentials

Forces GCM to ignore any existing stored Basic Auth or OAuth access tokens and always run through the process to refresh the credentials before returning them to Git.

This is especially relevant to OAuth credentials. Bitbucket.org access tokens expire after 2 hours, after that the refresh token must be used to get a new access token.

Enabling this option will improve performance when using Oauth2 and interacting with Bitbucket.org if, on average, commits are done less frequently than every 2 hours.

Enabling this option will decrease performance when using Basic Auth by requiring the user the re-enter credentials every time.

Example

git config --global credential.bitbucketAlwaysRefreshCredentials true

Defaults to false/disabled.

Also see: GCM_BITBUCKET_ALWAYS_REFRESH_CREDENTIALS

credential.bitbucketValidateStoredCredentials

Forces GCM to validate any stored credentials before returning them to Git. It does this by calling a REST API resource that requires authentication.

Disabling this option reduces the HTTP traffic within GCM when it is retrieving credentials. This may improve user performance, but will increase the number of times Git remote calls fail to authenticate with the host and therefore require the user to re-try the Git remote call.

Enabling this option helps ensure Git is always provided with valid credentials.

Example

git config --global credential.bitbucketValidateStoredCredentials true

Defaults to true/enabled.

Also see: GCM_BITBUCKET_VALIDATE_STORED_CREDENTIALS

credential.bitbucketDataCenterOAuthClientId

To use OAuth with Bitbucket DC it is necessary to create an external, incoming AppLink.

It is then necessary to configure the local GCM installation with both the OAuth ClientId and ClientSecret from the AppLink.

Example

git config --global credential.bitbucketDataCenterOAuthClientId 1111111111111111111

Defaults to undefined.

Also see: GCM_BITBUCKET_DATACENTER_CLIENTID

credential.bitbucketDataCenterOAuthClientSecret

To use OAuth with Bitbucket DC it is necessary to create an external, incoming AppLink.

It is then necessary to configure the local GCM installation with both the OAuth ClientId and ClientSecret from the AppLink.

Example

git config --global credential.bitbucketDataCenterOAuthClientSecret 222222222222222222222

Defaults to undefined.

Also see: GCM_BITBUCKET_DATACENTER_CLIENTSECRET

credential.gitHubAccountFiltering

Enable or disable automatic account filtering for GitHub based on server hints when there are multiple available accounts. This setting is only applicable to GitHub.com with Enterprise Managed Users.

Example

git config --global credential.gitHubAccountFiltering "false"

Also see: GCM_GITHUB_ACCOUNTFILTERING

credential.gitHubAuthModes

Override the available authentication modes presented during GitHub authentication. If this option is not set, then the available authentication modes will be automatically detected.

Note: This setting supports multiple values separated by commas.

Example

git config --global credential.gitHubAuthModes "oauth,basic"

Also see: GCM_GITHUB_AUTHMODES

credential.gitLabAuthModes

Override the available authentication modes presented during GitLab authentication. If this option is not set, then the available authentication modes will be automatically detected.

Note: This setting supports multiple values separated by commas.

Example

git config --global credential.gitLabAuthModes "browser"

Also see: GCM_GITLAB_AUTHMODES

credential.namespace

Use a custom namespace prefix for credentials read and written in the OS credential store. Credentials will be stored in the format {namespace}:{service}.

Defaults to the value git.

Example

git config --global credential.namespace "my-namespace"

Also see: GCM_NAMESPACE

credential.credentialStore

Select the type of credential store to use on supported platforms.

Default value on Windows is wincredman, on macOS is keychain, and is unset on Linux.

Note: See more information about configuring secret stores in cred-stores.

Example

git config --global credential.credentialStore gpg

Also see: GCM_CREDENTIAL_STORE

credential.cacheOptions

Pass options to the Git credential cache when credential.credentialStore is set to cache. This allows you to select a different amount of time to cache credentials (the default is 900 seconds) by passing "--timeout <seconds>". Use of other options like --socket is untested and unsupported, but there's no reason it shouldn't work.

Defaults to empty.

Example

git config --global credential.cacheOptions "--timeout 300"

Also see: GCM_CREDENTIAL_CACHE_OPTIONS

credential.plaintextStorePath

Specify a custom directory to store plaintext credential files in when credential.credentialStore is set to plaintext.

Defaults to the value ~/.gcm/store or %USERPROFILE%\.gcm\store.

Example

git config --global credential.plaintextStorePath /mnt/external-drive/credentials

Also see: GCM_PLAINTEXT_STORE_PATH

credential.dpapiStorePath

Specify a custom directory to store DPAPI protected credential files in when credential.credentialStore is set to dpapi.

Defaults to the value %USERPROFILE%\.gcm\dpapi_store.

Example

git config --global credential.dpapiStorePath D:\credentials

Also see: GCM_DPAPI_STORE_PATH

credential.gpgPassStorePath

Specify a custom directory to store GPG-encrypted pass-compatible credential files in when credential.credentialStore is set to gpg.

Defaults to the value ~/.password-store or %USERPROFILE%\.password-store.

Example

git config --global credential.gpgPassStorePath /mnt/external-drive/.password-store

Note: Location of the password store used by pass can be overridden by the PASSWORD_STORE_DIR environment variable, see the man page for details.

credential.msauthFlow

Specify which authentication flow should be used when performing Microsoft authentication and an interactive flow is required.

Defaults to auto.

Note: If credential.msauthUseBroker is set to true and the operating system authentication broker is available, all flows will be delegated to the broker. If both of those things are true, then the value of credential.msauthFlow has no effect.

Example

git config --global credential.msauthFlow devicecode

Also see: GCM_MSAUTH_FLOW

credential.msauthUseBroker (experimental)

Use the operating system account manager where available.

Defaults to false. In certain cloud hosted environments when using a work or school account, such as Microsoft DevBox, the default is true.

These defaults are subject to change in the future.

Note: before you enable this option on Windows, please review the Windows Broker details for what this means to your local Windows user account.

Example

git config --global credential.msauthUseBroker true

Also see: GCM_MSAUTH_USEBROKER

credential.msauthUseDefaultAccount (experimental)

Use the current operating system account by default when the broker is enabled.

Defaults to false. In certain cloud hosted environments when using a work or school account, such as Microsoft DevBox, the default is true.

These defaults are subject to change in the future.

Example

git config --global credential.msauthUseDefaultAccount true

Also see: GCM_MSAUTH_USEDEFAULTACCOUNT

credential.useHttpPath

Tells Git to pass the entire repository URL, rather than just the hostname, when calling out to a credential provider. (This setting comes from Git itself, not GCM.)

Defaults to false.

Note: GCM sets this value to true for dev.azure.com (Azure Repos) hosts after installation by default.

This is because dev.azure.com alone is not enough information to determine the correct Azure authentication authority - we require a part of the path. The fallout of this is that for dev.azure.com remote URLs we do not support storing credentials against the full-path. We always store against the dev.azure.com/org-name stub.

In order to use Azure Repos and store credentials against a full-path URL, you must use the org-name.visualstudio.com remote URL format instead.

Example

On Windows using GitHub, for a user whose login is alice, and with credential.useHttpPath set to false (or not set), the following remote URLs will use the same credentials:

Credential: "git:https://github.com" (user = alice)

   https://github.com/foo/bar
   https://github.com/contoso/widgets
   https://[email protected]/contoso/widgets

Credential: "git:https://[email protected]" (user = bob)

   https://[email protected]/foo/bar
   https://[email protected]/example/myrepo

Under the same user but with credential.useHttpPath set to true, these credentials would be used:

Credential: "git:https://github.com/foo/bar" (user = alice)

   https://github.com/foo/bar

Credential: "git:https://github.com/contoso/widgets" (user = alice)

   https://github.com/contoso/widgets
   https://[email protected]/contoso/widgets

Credential: "git:https://[email protected]/foo/bar" (user = bob)

   https://[email protected]/foo/bar

Credential: "git:https://[email protected]/example/myrepo" (user = bob)

   https://[email protected]/example/myrepo

credential.azreposCredentialType

Specify the type of credential the Azure Repos host provider should return.

Defaults to the value pat. In certain cloud hosted environments when using a work or school account, such as Microsoft DevBox, the default value is oauth.

Here is more information about Azure Access tokens.

Example

git config --global credential.azreposCredentialType oauth

Also see: GCM_AZREPOS_CREDENTIALTYPE

credential.azreposManagedIdentity

Use a Managed Identity to authenticate with Azure Repos.

The value system will tell GCM to use the system-assigned Managed Identity.

To specify a user-assigned Managed Identity, use the format id://{clientId} where {clientId} is the client ID of the Managed Identity. Alternatively any GUID-like value will also be interpreted as a user-assigned Managed Identity client ID.

To specify a Managed Identity associated with an Azure resource, you can use the format resource://{resourceId} where {resourceId} is the ID of the resource.

For more information about managed identities, see the Azure DevOps documentation.

git config --global credential.azreposManagedIdentity "id://11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111"

Also see: GCM_AZREPOS_MANAGEDIDENTITY

credential.azreposWorkloadFederation

Use Workload Identity Federation to authenticate with Azure Repos.

The value specifies the federation scenario to use for obtaining a client assertion to exchange for an access token.

You must also set the following companion settings:

• credential.azreposWorkloadFederationClientId
• credential.azreposWorkloadFederationTenantId

Depending on the scenario, additional settings may be required.

For more information about workload identity federation, see the conceptual documentation and the Azure DevOps documentation.

Example

git config --global credential.azreposWorkloadFederation githubactions

Also see: GCM_AZREPOS_WIF

credential.azreposWorkloadFederationClientId

The client ID of the app registration / service principal to request an access token for when using Workload Identity Federation with credential.azreposWorkloadFederation.

Example

git config --global credential.azreposWorkloadFederationClientId "11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111"

Also see: GCM_AZREPOS_WIF_CLIENTID

credential.azreposWorkloadFederationTenantId

The tenant ID of the app registration / service principal to request an access token for when using Workload Identity Federation with credential.azreposWorkloadFederation.

Example

git config --global credential.azreposWorkloadFederationTenantId "22222222-2222-2222-2222-222222222222"

Also see: GCM_AZREPOS_WIF_TENANTID

credential.azreposWorkloadFederationAudience

The audience to use when requesting the federated token for Workload Identity Federation with credential.azreposWorkloadFederation.

Defaults to api://AzureADTokenExchange.

Example

git config --global credential.azreposWorkloadFederationAudience "api://AzureADTokenExchange"

Also see: GCM_AZREPOS_WIF_AUDIENCE

credential.azreposWorkloadFederationAssertion

Specifies the client assertion token to use with the generic Workload Identity Federation scenario (credential.azreposWorkloadFederation).

This setting is required when credential.azreposWorkloadFederation is set to generic.

Example

git config --global credential.azreposWorkloadFederationAssertion "eyJhbGci..."

Also see: GCM_AZREPOS_WIF_ASSERTION

credential.azreposWorkloadFederationManagedIdentity

Specifies the Managed Identity to use to obtain a federated token for the managedidentity Workload Identity Federation scenario (credential.azreposWorkloadFederation).

This setting is required when credential.azreposWorkloadFederation is set to managedidentity.

The value accepts the same formats as credential.azreposManagedIdentity.

Example

git config --global credential.azreposWorkloadFederationManagedIdentity system

Also see: GCM_AZREPOS_WIF_MANAGEDIDENTITY

credential.azreposServicePrincipal

Specify the client and tenant IDs of a service principal to use when performing Microsoft authentication for Azure Repos.

The value of this setting should be in the format: {tenantId}/{clientId}.

You must also set at least one authentication mechanism if you set this value:

• credential.azreposServicePrincipalSecret
• credential.azreposServicePrincipalCertificateThumbprint
• credential.azreposServicePrincipalCertificateSendX5C

For more information about service principals, see the Azure DevOps documentation.

Example

git config --global credential.azreposServicePrincipal "11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111/22222222-2222-2222-2222-222222222222"

Also see: GCM_AZREPOS_SERVICE_PRINCIPAL

credential.azreposServicePrincipalSecret

Specifies the client secret for the service principal when performing Microsoft authentication for Azure Repos with credential.azreposServicePrincipalSecret set.

Example

git config --global credential.azreposServicePrincipalSecret "da39a3ee5e6b4b0d3255bfef95601890afd80709"

Also see: GCM_AZREPOS_SP_SECRET

credential.azreposServicePrincipalCertificateThumbprint

Specifies the thumbprint of a certificate to use when authenticating as a service principal for Azure Repos when GCM_AZREPOS_SERVICE_PRINCIPAL is set.

Example

git config --global credential.azreposServicePrincipalCertificateThumbprint "9b6555292e4ea21cbc2ebd23e66e2f91ebbe92dc"

Also see: GCM_AZREPOS_SP_CERT_THUMBPRINT

credential.azreposServicePrincipalCertificateSendX5C

When using a certificate for service principal authentication, this configuration specifies whether the X5C claim should be should be sent to the STS. Sending the x5c enables application developers to achieve easy certificate rollover in Azure AD: this method will send the public certificate to Azure AD along with the token request, so that Azure AD can use it to validate the subject name based on a trusted issuer policy. This saves the application admin from the need to explicitly manage the certificate rollover. For details see https://aka.ms/msal-net-sni.

Example

git config --global credential.azreposServicePrincipalCertificateSendX5C true

Also see: GCM_AZREPOS_SP_CERT_SEND_X5C

trace2.normalTarget

Turns on Trace2 Normal Format tracing - see Git's Trace2 Normal Format documentation for more details.

Example

git config --global trace2.normalTarget true

If the value of trace2.normalTarget is a full path to a file in an existing directory, logs are appended to the file.

If the value of trace2.normalTarget is true or 1, logs are written to standard error.

Defaults to disabled.

Also see: GIT_TRACE2

trace2.eventTarget

Turns on Trace2 Event Format tracing - see Git's Trace2 Event Format documentation for more details.

Example

git config --global trace2.eventTarget true

If the value of trace2.eventTarget is a full path to a file in an existing directory, logs are appended to the file.

If the value of trace2.eventTarget is true or 1, logs are written to standard error.

Defaults to disabled.

Also see: GIT_TRACE2_EVENT

trace2.perfTarget

Turns on Trace2 Performance Format tracing - see Git's Trace2 Performance Format documentation for more details.

Example

git config --global trace2.perfTarget true

If the value of trace2.perfTarget is a full path to a file in an existing directory, logs are appended to the file.

If the value of trace2.perfTarget is true or 1, logs are written to standard error.

Defaults to disabled.

Also see: GIT_TRACE2_PERF