Re: Why git on windows pops up Git Credential Manager inspite of having set a credential helper in .gitconfig

From: Aditya Garg <gargaditya08@live.com>
Date: Jul 1, 2025, 16:58 UTC
Message-ID: <PN3PR01MB95976A4B664ECB1EEB80D215B841A@PN3PR01MB9597.INDPRD01.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM>
In-Reply-To: <610f64a5-015e-b2d8-03ea-78bb623f6af0@gmx.de>

On 01-07-2025 10:11 pm, Johannes Schindelin wrote:

Show 28 quoted lines

> Hi Aditya,
> 
> On Tue, 1 Jul 2025, Aditya Garg wrote:
> 
>> I am having this issue with Git for Windows that in case I configure a credential helper by following the git
>> credentials documentation (https://git-scm.com/docs/gitcredentials), the Git Credential Manager still pops up.
>> I simply close the pop up window, and then it seems to be getting the password from my credential manager.
>>
>> I removed it using git config --edit --system, but after every update, it pops out again.
> 
> As per
> https://git-scm.com/docs/gitcredentials#Documentation/gitcredentials.txt-helper:
> 
> If there are multiple instances of the `credential.helper` configuration
> variable, each helper will be tried in turn, and may provide a username,
> password, or nothing. Once Git has acquired both a username and a
> non-expired password, no more helpers will be tried.
> 
>> I wonder if some proper fix is there for this.
> 
> Yes, from the same page:
> 
> If `credential.helper` is configured to the empty string, this resets the
> helper list to empty (so you may override a helper set by a lower-priority
> config file by configuring the empty-string helper, followed by whatever
> set of helpers you would like).
> 
> So the trick is to call `git config set --global --add credential.helper ''`

I wonder if this is a bug in git for windows?

PS C:\Users\Aditya\git> git config set --global --add credential.helper '' error: unknown option `add' usage: git config set [<file-option>] [--type=<type>] [--comment=<message>] [--all] [--value=<value>] [--fixed-value] <name> <value>

Config file location
    --[no-]global         use global config file
    --[no-]system         use system config file
    --[no-]local          use repository config file
    --[no-]worktree       use per-worktree config file
    -f, --[no-]file <file>
                          use given config file
    --[no-]blob <blob-id> read config from given blob object

Type
    -t, --[no-]type <type>
                          value is given this type
    --bool                value is "true" or "false"
    --int                 value is decimal number
    --bool-or-int         value is --bool or --int
    --bool-or-str         value is --bool or string
    --path                value is a path (file or directory name)
    --expiry-date         value is an expiry date

Filter
    --[no-]all            replace multi-valued config option with new value
    --[no-]value <pattern>
                          show config with values matching the pattern
    --[no-]fixed-value    use string equality when comparing values to value pattern

Other
    --[no-]comment <value>
                          human-readable comment string (# will be prepended as needed)
    --[no-]append         add a new line without altering any existing values

Or you meant by --append as per https://git-scm.com/docs/git-config

I anyways manually added `helper = ` line and now it works well! Thanks a lot.