

In the quest to become a universal solution for Git authentication, we’ve worked hard on getting GCM to work well on various Linux distributions, with a primary focus on Debian-based distributions. Using GCM makes it easy, and with exciting developments such as using GitHub Mobile for two-factor authentication and OAuth device code flow support, we are making authentication more seamless. Interacting with HTTP remotes without the help of a credential helper like GCM is becoming more difficult with the removal of username/password authentication at GitHub and Bitbucket. All existing issues and pull requests were migrated, and we continue to welcome everyone to contribute to the project. We felt being homed under /microsoft or /github didn’t quite represent the ethos of GCM as an open, universal and agnostic project. If you have followed the development of GCM closely, you might have also noticed we have a new home on GitHub in our own organization, /GitCredentialManager! In order to celebrate and reflect this successful unification, we decided to drop the “Core” moniker from the project’s name to become simply Git Credential Manager or GCM for short. I’m therefore pleased to say that we’ve managed to successfully replace both GCM for Windows and GCM for Mac and Linux with the new GCM! The source code of the older projects has been archived, and they are no longer shipped with distributions like Git for Windows! In my last blog post, I talked about the risk of proliferating “universal standards” and how introducing Git Credential Manager Core (GCM Core) would mean yet another credential helper in the wild. In short, GCM wants to be Git’s universal authentication experience. The goal of Git Credential Manager (GCM) is to make the task of authenticating to your remote Git repositories easy and secure, no matter where your code is stored or how you choose to work. These words were true when I wrote them back in July 2020, and they’re still true today. Hard to debug, hard to test, hard to get right.” – Me
