Git unable to sign commits

Question

I followed the instructions on Github to setup Git signing, but I get the following error when I try to sign and commit. I searched online but I fail to the reason why --help is being included in the command to sign. I am on a Mac (M2) and Git version is 2.40.1

╭─rishabh@WKW305277K ~/Development/src  ‹feature/list-by-currency*›
╰─➤  GIT_TRACE=1 git commit -m "Initial commit"

13:02:32.970213 git.c:439               trace: built-in: git commit -m 'Initial commit'
13:02:32.991133 run-command.c:655       trace: run_command: --help --status-fd=2 -bsau 6C3C23C559AA013D352F8790061E0F7BCE5EABB8
error: cannot run --help: No such file or directory
error: gpg failed to sign the data:
(no gpg output)
fatal: failed to write commit object

To help debug the issue here are the requested information:

Content of ~/.gitconfig

╭─rishabh@WKW305277K ~
╰─➤  cat ~/.gitconfig

[filter "lfs"]
    required = true
    clean = git-lfs clean -- %f
    smudge = git-lfs smudge -- %f
    process = git-lfs filter-process
[user]
    name = Rishabh
    email = rishabh@example.com
    signingkey = 6C3C23C559AA013D352F8790061E0F7BCE5EABB8
[init]
    defaultBranch = master
[pull]
    rebase = false
[commit]
    template = /Users/rishabh/.gitmessage
    gpgsign = true
[core]
    excludesfile = /Users/rishabh/.gitignore_global
[difftool "sourcetree"]
    cmd = opendiff \"$LOCAL\" \"$REMOTE\"
    path =
[mergetool "sourcetree"]
    cmd = /Applications/Sourcetree.app/Contents/Resources/opendiff-w.sh \"$LOCAL\" \"$REMOTE\" -ancestor \"$BASE\" -merge \"$MERGED\"
    trustExitCode = true
[gpg]
    program = /opt/homebrew/opt/gnupg@2.2/bin/gpg

Output of gpg --status-fd=2 -bsau <key>

╭─rishabh@WKW305277K ~
╰─➤  gpg --status-fd=2 -bsau 6C3C23C559AA013D352F8790061E0F7BCE5EABB8

[GNUPG:] KEY_CONSIDERED 6C3C23C559AA013D352F8790061E0F7BCE5EABB8 2
[GNUPG:] BEGIN_SIGNING H8
^C
gpg: signal Interrupt caught ... exiting

What do you have for `git config --global --get gpg.program`? — Jim Redmond, May 05 '23 at 17:03
Have you looked at your `~/.gitconfig`? If `gpg.program` is set to `--help`, you'll see it in there. Without your active configuration, the question doesn't contain enough information to be solvable. — Charles Duffy, May 05 '23 at 17:54
@JimRedmond I have updated the question with more information to help debug. — Rishabh, May 08 '23 at 12:07
@charles-duffy I have updated the question with more information to help debug. — Rishabh, May 08 '23 at 12:07
If instead of passing a full path you just have `gpg.program` set to `gpg`, that would be more similar to your use of `gpg` (not `/opt/homebrew/opt/gnupg@2.2/bin/gpg`) when testing at the command line. — Charles Duffy, May 08 '23 at 14:40
(without investigating any wrapper created by the Homebrew formula, we don't know that the homebrew gpg is _really_ gpg without extra gunk added on). — Charles Duffy, May 08 '23 at 14:44
Also, is there any chance your _individual project_ could have `git.program` overridden, even though your global `git.program` is fine? (The easy way to test this: Do you have the same problem in a completely new repository?) — Charles Duffy, May 08 '23 at 14:46
@CharlesDuffy the `git.program` was overriden for my individual projects! Thank you for the directions! On creating a new repository I did not face that problem. I am guessing, maybe my IDE would have added it (because of a bug). — Rishabh, May 09 '23 at 08:51

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered May 09 '23 at 08:58

The solution required that I check the output of git config --global gpg.program and git config gpg.program on individual repositories, and then I noticed that on individual repositories I had the following:

╭─rishabh@WKW305277K ~/Development/src  ‹feature/list-by-currency*›
╰─➤  git config gpg.program
--help

which I corrected by setting the value as below and it corrected my problem.

git config gpg.program gpg

Git unable to sign commits

1 Answers1