Repository navigation
Enabling --signoff / -s on commits #5351
Description
Please describe the problem you think should be solved
A lot of open source projects work with the Developer Certificate of Origin (like Linux, Nextcloud and others). Currently, commits created with GitHub Desktop can not be signed off and you would have to amend each one using the command line. Or you have to manually insert the Signed-off-by: … line in every commit.
- Documentation of --signoff: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-commit#git-commit--s
- More info on the DCO and why --signoff was added: https://stackoverflow.com/a/1962112
- Same issue exists in the Git & GitHub integration of Atom: Add Signed-off-by line in commit log message. atom/github#914
- Tangentially related to Setup gpg signing #78 (Setup gpg signing)
Do you have any potential solutions in mind?
Possible solutions are:
- Simply sign off every commit automatically. The only thing to add to the commit message is:
Signed-off-by: Name <[email protected]>
- Or if automatic signing has any drawback, have a global (or per-project) setting on whether commits should be signed automatically.
Reacted by Georg J.P. Link, Nastuzzi Samy, Toma Tasovac, Konstantin Manna, Dmitry Kornilov, John Molakvoæ, René Gieling, Kameron Carr, Lars Kaulen, Toshimaru and 70 more
Reacted by Nastuzzi Samy, John Molakvoæ, René Gieling, Thomas Bonnet, yonghongshi, Prabhdeep Singh, Patrice Chalin, Steven T. Cramer, David Swinkels, R0CKSTAR and 12 more
Reacted by Copilot and Oliver Sand
Activity
shiftkey commentedon Aug 7, 2018
@jancborchardt thanks for the suggestion!
A couple of questions I have about this:
user.nameanduser.emailsettings in Git. If we don't let the user choose this are they going to be confused?perploug commentedon Aug 8, 2018
Personally I use a global git-hook to ensure that my commits in github desktop contains a sign-off automatically (Sample docs)
IMO having a global setting which enables gh desktop to automatically sign-off all commits would be very helpful. Having sign-off in a commit, even when not need, doesn't seem to have any drawbacks.
Bots like DCO Bot requires all commits to have sign-off to pass the status check
jancborchardt commentedon Aug 9, 2018
A simple way this could be handled right now:
In the future, there could be an interface to set these user.name and .email attributes (or is there already)?
Yes, usually that is the case. As @perploug mentioned there are bots which require all commits to have sign-off, and that’s the case for us too.
And @shiftkey thanks a lot for your work bringing GitHub Desktop to Linux! Much appreciated! 🎉
shiftkey commentedon Aug 9, 2018
@jancborchardt
It's available in the File | Preferences (macOS) or File | Options (Windows/Linux) menu:
jancborchardt commentedon Aug 9, 2018
@shiftkey right, sorry I should have checked. :) What do you think about the points about how automatic signing could be handled?
billygriffin commentedon Aug 10, 2018
@jancborchardt Do you think the prepopulation in the description field would be a good idea across the board? I think it would have the potential to cause additional churn for folks on projects that don't require this sign off, as it's adding something into a text field that the user didn't actually type. Thoughts?
cc: @ampinsk
jancborchardt commentedon Aug 12, 2018
@billygriffin no, I'd say that's more of a hack for the short term. Ideally you would have:
perploug commentedon Aug 13, 2018
Agree with @jancborchardt: a small indicator like the +1 person icon at the bottom would be sufficient.
One thing to consider tho, is that if you use different tools besides GH Desktop, you will have inconsistent commit signing, throughout my day I commit from desktop, cmdline and vscode - whatever is convenient. So consider if the solution would rather be to automate signing at a git-hook level, rather than on the tool level. GH Desktop could make this process easy by adding a global or project specific git-hook, which would then make signing consistent across whatever git tool you might use.
billygriffin commentedon Aug 13, 2018
That's helpful, thanks for the context! @ampinsk Do you have thoughts on this? I'm not sure much user research would be that helpful here.
Aparnarr commentedon Aug 27, 2018
HI i am not able to sign my previous commits
jancborchardt commentedon Jun 22, 2019
@shiftkey @billygriffin @ampinsk is there any more info or designs needed? I’m also an interaction designer & user researcher so I’d love to help if that is what this is stuck at. 🙂
Naitik333 commentedon Aug 16, 2019
@jancborchardt any updates on this? when can we expect automatic signoff in the commits through github desktop tool? currently after every commit we have to manually signoff them
15 remaining items
TheWitness commentedon Jun 10, 2025
Adding my $0.02 on this.... ppppplease, pretty pppppplease :). Option below the 'Description' box.
igalloway commentedon Aug 28, 2025
Bump: Would appreciate this feature. Recently started causing me problems.
FWIW as a user, I envision it as a checkbox on the commit dialog in the lower right of the desktop client. Maybe an icon like the "add co-others" in that dialog.
I think literally this would this not just append the -s flag to the git background commit command if checked?
An alternative or additional option would be to add a checkbox in the settings where your name and email and default branch are set.
github-actions commentedon Mar 5, 2026
Thank you for your issue! We have categorized it as an enhancement (feature or improvement) request, and it has been added to our backlog. In doing so, we are not committing to implementing this feature at this time, but, we will consider it for future releases based on community feedback and our own product roadmap.
Unless you see the help wantedIssues marked as ideal for external contributors
label, we are not currently looking for external contributions for this feature.
If you come across this issue and would like to see it implemented, please add a thumbs up! This will help us prioritize the feature. Please only comment if you have additional information or viewpoints to contribute.
szaimen commentedon Mar 10, 2026
🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
TheWitness commentedon Mar 10, 2026
Nice!