---
title: "Accounts and identities"
description: "Accounts authenticate. Identities author. Why GitLane keeps them completely separate."
---

> Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.gitlane.space/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Accounts and identities

Most git clients conflate "who am I signed in as" with "who am I committing
as." GitLane splits them into two independent nouns, because they answer
different questions and get the wrong answer in different ways.

| | **Accounts** | **Identities** |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Answer the question | Who authenticates? | Who authored this? |
| Used for | Clone, fetch, pull, push, PR APIs | The commit's author and committer |
| Stored in | The HTTPS remote URL / OS keychain / `gh` | The repository's **local** git config |
| Scope | Per remote | Per repository |

They do not feed each other. Signing into an account never prefills an
identity, and picking an identity never changes how you authenticate.

## Accounts

Sign into several GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket accounts at once, then pick
which one each **remote** uses.

The binding is stored git-natively: the account becomes the username in the
HTTPS remote URL, written via `git remote set-url` and read back from the
remote list. Credential helpers resolve by that username
(see `gitcredentials(7)`), so the exact same choice applies when you use the
repository from a terminal. SSH remotes pick their account by key instead.

How the credential itself is supplied depends on the remote:

- **GitHub remotes** can inject `gh auth git-credential` per invocation.
- **GitLab, Bitbucket, Azure Repos, and unknown HTTPS remotes** use your
  configured git credential helper or GCM.
- **GitLane-owned tokens** are stored in your OS keychain and fed to git
  through a credential bridge, so the token never crosses into the frontend.

A repository is fully usable — commit, fetch, push — with **no account
connected at all**.

### Two distinct sign-out verbs

> **These do different things**
>
> **Provider sign-out** deletes GitLane's own keychain token. **Forget saved
> HTTPS credential** runs `git credential reject`, erasing what your own git
> helper stored. Doing one does not do the other.

## Identities

An **identity card** is a reusable entry: a name, an email, and optionally a
GPG or SSH signing key. Applying one writes it to the open repository's
**local** git config — never the global one.

This is what stops you committing to a client repository with your personal
email, or pushing an unsigned commit to a repository that expects
verification. The pin travels with the repository, not with your session.

Cards are reusable across repositories, and a card can carry a per-repository
custom email override. If you pin nothing, GitLane commits as **"this
computer"** — your global git config, exactly like a terminal.

The repository's Identity panel is one freely editable name/email card with
your saved cards as presets. Its only prefill is "adopt the repository's
current git-config identity as a card" — derived from git config, never from
an account.

> **Git config is the source of truth**
>
> GitLane reads the effective identity back out of git config rather than
> trusting its own state. If you change `user.email` in a terminal, the app
> reflects it.

## Where to find both

Settings → **Accounts** and Settings → **Identities**, grouped together
under *Accounts & identities*.

Source: https://docs.gitlane.space/guides/accounts-and-identities/index.mdx