RE: [DISCUSS] validation on git config user.email

From: rsbecker@nexbridge.com <rsbecker@nexbridge.com>
Date: Sep 14, 2025, 16:59 UTC
Message-ID: <007701dc2599$02b6ca30$08245e90$@nexbridge.com>
In-Reply-To: <88e9b975-70a5-4773-bd08-634e56c491c6@app.fastmail.com>

On September 14, 2025 7:18 AM, Kristoffer Haugsbakk wrote:

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>On Fri, Sep 12, 2025, at 17:00, rsbecker@nexbridge.com wrote:
>> On September 12, 2025 12:13 AM, usharerose wrote:
>>>I'm a Git user and curious about a specific aspect of Git's design
>>>regarding the 'user.email' configuration.
>>>
>>>Git allows any kind of values without restriction when setting
>>>'user.email' via 'git config' (e.g., `git config user.email

"not-a-valid-email-

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>address"`).
>>>
>>>I'm interested in understanding the design philosophy or historical
>>>reasons behind this 'lack' of validation.
>>>
>>>I've glanced through the documentations, archived emails, or forum
>>>topics, but couldn't find a definitive or official statement.
>>>
>>>Thanks for your time and insights.
>>
>> Some customers integrate single sign-on (SSO) via the user.email value.
>> In the case
>> of one customer I helped, the value is an SSO token used by GitHub for
>> their integration. The token value does not conform to any valid email
>> address format.
>> Adding an email validation will lock them out of using git.
>
>That sounds unreasonable.

In what way, may I ask? I have personally seen this done. Their core.email value is not a valid user name. It is a token with no @ or . characters. It is an alphanumeric string.