Just the other day, git started to continuously prompt me to re-enter my GitHub credentials, despite the fact that I had repeatedly cached my credentials. Why, GitHub, why are you bothering me with this, I pondered. Turns out, GitHub desktop runs a ‘configuration sanitizer’ when it starts up because GitHub has “seen significant issues in the past with other Git clients adding invalid/bad configuration values”. Makes sense. I have, in fact, seen that happen in the past. Now, why this sanitation process would remove my [credentials], I have no idea. Nevertheless, I could watch it happen. I would add this setting to my .gitconfig file…
[credential]
helper = wincred
…load GitHub Desktop, and watch as the setting was ‘sanitized’ into this:
[credential]
Hence, the continual prompting for my password. Gratefully, there is a workaround. You can disable the sanitizer altogether:
git config --global ghfw.disableverification true
I no longer use any git GUIs that might insert naughty values, so I’m fine with disabling it. But it does seem odd to me that the credentials setting would be removed like that. Whatever. Moving on…