x/review/git-codereview: asks for password when cookie is required

[brackendawson]

Go version

go1.24.1 darwin/arm64

Output of go env in your module/workspace:

AR='ar'
CC='clang'
CGO_CFLAGS='-O2 -g'
CGO_CPPFLAGS=''
CGO_CXXFLAGS='-O2 -g'
CGO_ENABLED='1'
CGO_FFLAGS='-O2 -g'
CGO_LDFLAGS='-O2 -g'
CXX='clang++'
GCCGO='gccgo'
GO111MODULE=''
GOARCH='arm64'
GOARM64='v8.0'
GOAUTH='netrc'
GOBIN=''
GOCACHE='/Users/bracken/Library/Caches/go-build'
GOCACHEPROG=''
GODEBUG=''
GOENV='/Users/bracken/Library/Application Support/go/env'
GOEXE=''
GOEXPERIMENT=''
GOFIPS140='off'
GOFLAGS=''
GOGCCFLAGS='-fPIC -arch arm64 -pthread -fno-caret-diagnostics -Qunused-arguments -fmessage-length=0 -ffile-prefix-map=/var/folders/j6/l0vmp0f15cg2_0jz9zcm2jvh0000gn/T/go-build2342916578=/tmp/go-build -gno-record-gcc-switches -fno-common'
GOHOSTARCH='arm64'
GOHOSTOS='darwin'
GOINSECURE=''
GOMOD='/dev/null'
GOMODCACHE='/Users/bracken/pkg/mod'
GONOPROXY=''
GONOSUMDB=''
GOOS='darwin'
GOPATH='/Users/bracken'
GOPRIVATE=''
GOPROXY='https://proxy.golang.org,direct'
GOROOT='/usr/local/go'
GOSUMDB='sum.golang.org'
GOTELEMETRY='local'
GOTELEMETRYDIR='/Users/bracken/Library/Application Support/go/telemetry'
GOTMPDIR=''
GOTOOLCHAIN='auto'
GOTOOLDIR='/usr/local/go/pkg/tool/darwin_arm64'
GOVCS=''
GOVERSION='go1.24.1'
GOWORK=''
PKG_CONFIG='pkg-config'

What did you do?

I installed golang.org/x/review/git-codereview using the instructions at https://go.dev/doc/contribute#git-codereview_install because I was using a different machine to make changes to a review I had received feedback on.

What did you see happen?

git codereview mail prompted me for a username, and then for a password which doesn't exist.

What did you expect to see?

git codereview mail to either work or tell me what is wrong.

[seankhliao]

I believe that's a git configuration issue, not much to do with coereview.

[brackendawson]

Debug

In fact, what was wrong is that I needed to configure git with a cookie. Why can't codereview tell me that?

What I needed to do was step 2: https://go.dev/doc/contribute#config_git_auth Is there a good reason why step 2 is not the last step, then people installing codereview a second time can more easily see how to log in?

Perhaps this is a documentation issue and not a codereview issue.

[prattmic]

I disagree that this has nothing to do with codereview. This seems like a point of friction where codereview could help provide information to make things smoother.

e.g., taking a look at https://git-scm.com/docs/gitcredentials, I wrote askpass.sh:

#!/bin/bash

echo "Authentication misconfigured. See https://go.dev/doc/contribute#config_git_auth" >&2

exit 1

Then, we get output like:

$ SSH_ASKPASS=/tmp/gotest/askpass.sh git push origin HEAD:refs/for/master
Authentication misconfigured. See https://go.dev/doc/contribute#config_git_auth
error: unable to read askpass response from '/tmp/gotest/askpass.sh'
Username for 'https://go.googlesource.com': 

I'm not sure this is the best approach, but it seems like we could do something here fairly easily.

[gabyhelp]

Related Issues

• doc: clearly differentiate between per-account and per-machine steps in Contribution Guide #74690 (closed)
• Can't install the git-codereview command on mac, using contribution guide docs #45730 (closed)
• x/review/git-codereview: mail requires -trust=false #56343 (closed)
• x/review: git codereview mail uses wrong email #34411 (closed)
• x/review/git-codereview: incomplete help documentation for `git codereview` #42351

Related Discussions

• trouble running "git-codereview mail"

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