gitcreds_list: List all credentials stored by a git credential helper

In gitcreds: Query 'git' Credentials from 'R'

List all credentials stored by a git credential helper

Description

This function is meant to be used interactively, to help you when configuring credential helpers. It is especially useful if you have multiple accounts on a host.

Usage

gitcreds_list(
  url = "https://github.com",
  credential_helper = NULL,
  protocol = NULL
)

Arguments

url	URL to list credentials for. If NULL then the credentials are listed for all URLs. Note that for a host the results might be different if you specify or omit this argument. gitcreds_list() uses heuristics when the url is not specified. If is always best to specify the URL.
credential_helper	Credential helper to use. If this is NULL, then the configured credential helper is used. If multiple credential helpers are configured, then the first one is used, with a warning.
protocol	Protocol to list credentials for. If NULL and url includes a protocol then that is used. Otherwise "https" is used.

Details

Note that this function does not use the credential helper itself, so it does not have to be installed. But it may also give false results, so interpret the results with caution, and also use the tool provided by your OS, to look at the credentials: 'Keychain Access' on macOS and 'Credential Manager' on Windows.

Only a small number of credential helpers are supported currently. Here is a brief description of each.

osxkeychain on macOS

This is the default credential helper on macOS.

It has some peculiarities:

• If you don't specify a username in the URL, then it will return the oldest credentials that match the specified host name, with an arbitrary user name.

• If the user name is specified in the URL, then it is used to look up the credentials.

To change or delete the listed credentials, see the oskeyring package or the 'Keychain Access' macOS app.

manager, on Windows

This is Git Credential Manager for Windows, see https://github.com/microsoft/Git-Credential-Manager-for-Windows

It is currently the default helper on Windows, included in the git installer.

It has some oddities, especially with multiple GitHub users:

• The github authority (which is used by default for github.com URLs) cannot handle multiple users. It always sets the target_name of the Windows credential to git:<URL> where <URL> does not contain the user name. Since target_name is a primary key, it is not possible to add multiple GitHub users with the default configuration.

• To support multiple users, switch to the Basic authority, e.g. by setting the GCM_AUTHORITY env var to Basic. Then the user name will be included in target_name, and everything works fine.

• For this helper gitcreds_list() lists all records with a matching host name.

manager-core on Windows

This is Git Credential Manager Core, see https://github.com/microsoft/Git-Credential-Manager-Core

On Windows it behaves almost the same way as manager, with some differences:

• Instead of authorities, it has providers. github.com URLs use the github provider by default. For better support for multiple GitHub accounts, switch to the generic provider by setting the GCM_PROVIDER env var to generic.

• gitcreds_list() will list all credentials with a matching host, irrespectively of the user name in the input URL.

manager-core, before version 2.0.246-beta, on macOS

This is Git Credential Manager Core, see https://github.com/microsoft/Git-Credential-Manager-Core

This helper has some peculiarities w.r.t. user names:

• If the "github" provider is used (which is the default for github.com URLs), then it completely ignores user names, even if they are explicitly specified in the query.

• For other providers, the user name (if specified) is saved in the Keychain item.

• For this helper, gitcreds_list() always lists all records that match the host, even if the user name does not match, because it is impossible to tell if the user name would be used in a proper git credential lookup.

To change or delete the listed credentials, see the oskeyring package or the 'Keychain Access' macOS app.

manager-core, version 2.0.246-beta or newer, on macOS

This is a newer version of Git Credential Manager Core, that supports multiple users better:

• if a user name is provided, then it saves it in the credential store, and it uses this user name for looking up credentials, even for the github provider.

• gitcreds_list() always lists all records that match the host, even if the user name does not match.

• Credentials that were created by an older version of manager-core, with the generic provider, do not work with the newer version of manager-core, because the format of the Keychain item is different.

Value

A list of oskeyring_macos_item objects. See oskeyring::macos_item().

gitcreds documentation built on Sept. 8, 2022, 5:08 p.m.