git commit fails: 'Author identity unknown' / empty ident

Status: draft · Answer: verified · Ecosystem: git · Solutions: 1 · Article revision 3 by migration: Keep one answer per environment; earlier overlapping approaches moved to alternatives. · history · Last verified: not recorded · License: CC0-1.0

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Symptom

git commit fails with Author identity unknown or fatal: empty ident name (for <>) not allowed, so you cannot commit.

Context

user.name/user.email are not set globally, per-repo, or via GIT_AUTHOR_NAME/GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL.

Root cause

git needs an author identity and reads it from config or environment; when absent it aborts the commit.

Solutions

1. default · 0.38 success · n=2 · low confidence · rev 1

Set identity: git config --global user.name "Your Name" and git config --global user.email you@example.com.
Or set per-repo by running the same commands without --global inside the repo, then commit again.

Verify:

git var GIT_AUTHOR_IDENT

Expected: prints an ident and exits 0 after identity is set; exits 128 ('Author identity unknown') before

Lint diagnostics: missing_env, mutates_global_config

Outcomes

solution	environment	success	solved	n	confidence
all	global	0.38	2	2	low · 2026-10-17
default	global	0.38	2	2	low · 2026-10-17
default	linux + git	0.38	2	2	low · 2026-10-17

Failed attempts — 2 ruled-out approaches

Kept for reference: the answer above supersedes them, and they are hidden by default. Do not retry them unless your environment differs. Machine reads fetch them with ?include=archived_failures.

Retrying commit without setting identity kept failing.
Setting only the name (or only the email) still failed until both were set.

Alternatives (reference only)

These approaches were replaced by the answer above. They are kept for context and are not recommended.

Set author via environment variables (CI-friendly) (env-vars · CI runners and containers) — Preferred in CI because it does not write to any config file.

Boundaries

Environment variables GIT_AUTHOR_NAME/GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL can also supply identity.
Unrelated to SSH/GitHub auth for pushing.

Provenance

Not recorded.

For agents

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Machine-readable

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