Re: Failing to push to a repository erases authentication helper credentials

From: Michal Suchánek <msuchanek@suse.de>
Date: Jun 30, 2025, 15:09 UTC
Message-ID: <aGKokqPJPh5fQ3fc@kitsune.suse.cz>
In-Reply-To: <aGKfs5VRdmnw6Pqc@fruit.crustytoothpaste.net>

On Mon, Jun 30, 2025 at 02:31:15PM +0000, brian m. carlson wrote:

Show 20 quoted lines

> On 2025-06-30 at 13:45:30, Michal Suchánek wrote:
> > I was trying out AGit https://docs.gitea.com/usage/agit with oauth
> > helper https://github.com/hickford/git-credential-oauth encountering
> > this bug https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea/issues/34583
> > 
> > When doing so the oauth helper asked for new authentication, then for
> > some reason I was asked for authentication by some other helper.
> > 
> > After that pushing to repository to which I have permissions asked for
> > authentication again.
> > 
> > This hints that any failed git operation erases helper credentials.
> 
> This is true and it's by design.
> 
> > That does not sound like a desirable behavior.
> 
> It is in fact desirable because otherwise the user continues to attempt
> to use the bad credentials and then can never again authenticate
> successfully, since they are never again prompted for credentials.

My proglem is that the credentials are actually valid, only the operation is not. The current behavior erases valid credentials.

Show 5 quoted lines

> > Could the previous credentials be preserved?
> 
> Git doesn't have a behaviour to do so, but you could of course craft a
> custom credential helper that just rejects the erase command and passes
> everything else through to another helper.  That would achieve your

I do not want to use another helper. I want to preserve the last valid credentials.

Of course, using credentials that are not maintained by git at all (such as ssh authentication) does not have this problem. Only git-managed credentials get erased on invalid operation.

Thanks

Michal