git-credential-cache(1) — Linux manual page

NAME \| SYNOPSIS \| DESCRIPTION \| OPTIONS \| CONTROLLING THE DAEMON \| EXAMPLES \| PERSONAL ACCESS TOKENS \| GIT \| COLOPHON

GIT-CREDENTIAL-CACHE(1)         Git Manual        GIT-CREDENTIAL-CACHE(1)

NAME top

       git-credential-cache - Helper to temporarily store passwords in
       memory

SYNOPSIS top

       git config credential.helper 'cache [<options>]'

DESCRIPTION top

       This command caches credentials for use by future Git programs.
       The stored credentials are kept in memory of the cache-daemon
       process (instead of being written to a file) and are forgotten
       after a configurable timeout. Credentials are forgotten sooner if
       the cache-daemon dies, for example if the system restarts. The
       cache is accessible over a Unix domain socket, restricted to the
       current user by filesystem permissions.

       You probably don’t want to invoke this command directly; it is
       meant to be used as a credential helper by other parts of Git. See
       gitcredentials(7) or EXAMPLES below.

OPTIONS top

       --timeout <seconds>
           Number of seconds to cache credentials (default: 900).

       --socket <path>
           Use <path> to contact a running cache daemon (or start a new
           cache daemon if one is not started). Defaults to
           $XDG_CACHE_HOME/git/credential/socket unless
           ~/.git-credential-cache/ exists in which case
           ~/.git-credential-cache/socket is used instead. If your home
           directory is on a network-mounted filesystem, you may need to
           change this to a local filesystem. You must specify an
           absolute path.

CONTROLLING THE DAEMON top

       If you would like the daemon to exit early, forgetting all cached
       credentials before their timeout, you can issue an exit action:

           git credential-cache exit

EXAMPLES top

       The point of this helper is to reduce the number of times you must
       type your username or password. For example:

           $ git config credential.helper cache
           $ git push http://example.com/repo.git
           Username: <type your username>
           Password: <type your password>

           [work for 5 more minutes]
           $ git push http://example.com/repo.git
           [your credentials are used automatically]

       You can provide options via the credential.helper configuration
       variable (this example increases the cache time to 1 hour):

           $ git config credential.helper 'cache --timeout=3600'

PERSONAL ACCESS TOKENS top

       Some remotes accept personal access tokens, which are randomly
       generated and hard to memorise. They typically have a lifetime of
       weeks or months.

       git-credential-cache is inherently unsuitable for persistent
       storage of personal access tokens. The credential will be
       forgotten after the cache timeout. Even if you configure a long
       timeout, credentials will be forgotten if the daemon dies.

       To avoid frequently regenerating personal access tokens, configure
       a credential helper with persistent storage. Alternatively,
       configure an OAuth credential helper to generate credentials
       automatically. See gitcredentials(7), sections "Available helpers"
       and "OAuth".

GIT top

       Part of the git(1) suite

COLOPHON top

       This page is part of the git (Git distributed version control
       system) project.  Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨http://git-scm.com/⟩.  If you have a bug report for this manual
       page, see ⟨http://git-scm.com/community⟩.  This page was obtained
       from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://github.com/git/git.git⟩ on 2025-02-02.  (At that time,
       the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
       repository was 2025-01-31.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
       a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

Git 2.48.1.166.g58b580          2025-01-31        GIT-CREDENTIAL-CACHE(1)

Pages that refer to this page: git(1), git-credential-cache--daemon(1), git-credential-store(1), gitcredentials(7)