RE: [DISCUSS] validation on git config user.email

[<rsbecker@nexbridge.com>]

On September 14, 2025 7:18 AM, Kristoffer Haugsbakk wrote:
>On Fri, Sep 12, 2025, at 17:00, rsbecker@nexbridge.com wrote:
>> On September 12, 2025 12:13 AM, usharerose wrote:
>>>I'm a Git user and curious about a specific aspect of Git's design
>>>regarding the 'user.email' configuration.
>>>
>>>Git allows any kind of values without restriction when setting
>>>'user.email' via 'git config' (e.g., `git config user.email
"not-a-valid-email-
>address"`).
>>>
>>>I'm interested in understanding the design philosophy or historical
>>>reasons behind this 'lack' of validation.
>>>
>>>I've glanced through the documentations, archived emails, or forum
>>>topics, but couldn't find a definitive or official statement.
>>>
>>>Thanks for your time and insights.
>>
>> Some customers integrate single sign-on (SSO) via the user.email value.
>> In the case
>> of one customer I helped, the value is an SSO token used by GitHub for
>> their integration. The token value does not conform to any valid email
>> address format.
>> Adding an email validation will lock them out of using git.
>
>That sounds unreasonable.

In what way, may I ask? I have personally seen this done. Their core.email
value is not a valid user name. It is a token with no @ or . characters. It
is an alphanumeric string.