Ability to set organization-specific primary email for web-based Git operations

[henrythor]

Select Topic Area

Product Feedback

Body

Currently, the commit author email used for web-based Git operations (such as squash merges, editing files in the browser, or creating a repository from a template) is always taken from the account’s global Primary email address setting.

This creates friction for users who work across both personal and organizational contexts:

My personal account has a personal email set as primary.
When I perform web-based actions in my organization’s repositories, those commits are authored with my personal email, which mixes personal and work identities in the commit history.
The only workaround is to manually change my primary email in account settings before and after performing organization work, which is error-prone and inconvenient.

Proposed feature:
Add the ability to set a default commit/author email address per organization for web-based Git operations.

This email would override the global primary email when performing actions in repositories owned by that organization.
It could be configured in the organization’s settings (per member) or in the user’s account settings under “Organization-specific email preferences.”

Benefits:

Keeps commit history clean and consistent with the correct identity.
Reduces the need to constantly toggle primary email settings.
Improves separation of work and personal contributions.
Organizations can use rulesets that limit the author/committer email to work emails without breaking web workflows.

Example use case:
A developer contributes to open source projects under their personal account but also works in a company organization. They want all commits in the company’s repos to use their work email, while personal repos use their personal email, without manual switching.

For many web-based operations I can select the email, but for certain things like initializing a repository from a template I cannot, and the only way around that is to set my primary email temporarily to my work email.

Bonus: Allow organizations to set the SSO email as the default email for its enterprise and/or organizations.

[github-actions[bot]]

💬 Your Product Feedback Has Been Submitted 🎉

Thank you for taking the time to share your insights with us! Your feedback is invaluable as we build a better GitHub experience for all our users.

Here's what you can expect moving forward ⏩

• Your input will be carefully reviewed and cataloged by members of our product teams. 
  • Due to the high volume of submissions, we may not always be able to provide individual responses.
  • Rest assured, your feedback will help chart our course for product improvements.
• Other users may engage with your post, sharing their own perspectives or experiences. 
• GitHub staff may reach out for further clarification or insight. 
  • We may 'Answer' your discussion if there is a current solution, workaround, or roadmap/changelog post related to the feedback.

Where to look to see what's shipping 👀

• Read the Changelog for real-time updates on the latest GitHub features, enhancements, and calls for feedback.
• Explore our Product Roadmap, which details upcoming major releases and initiatives.

What you can do in the meantime 💻

• Upvote and comment on other user feedback Discussions that resonate with you.
• Add more information at any point! Useful details include: use cases, relevant labels, desired outcomes, and any accompanying screenshots.

As a member of the GitHub community, your participation is essential. While we can't promise that every suggestion will be implemented, we want to emphasize that your feedback is instrumental in guiding our decisions and priorities.

Thank you once again for your contribution to making GitHub even better! We're grateful for your ongoing support and collaboration in shaping the future of our platform. ⭐

[mtibben]

Another reason for this is keeping commit attribution separate from account recovery. I want to use my work email when merging PRs in my organization, but keep an email I personally control as my account’s primary address.

My organization controls my work mailbox, and I don’t control who can access it or what happens to it when I leave. Making it my primary email just to change the default for web-based Git operations also makes it an account recovery address.

A per-organization default commit email should be independent of primary and backup email settings. Using a verified work email for commit attribution shouldn’t require trusting that mailbox with recovery of my personal GitHub account.

[aungzayyanaing]

Short answer: No — GitHub does not currently offer a per-organization default commit/author email for web-based operations, and signing in to an organization via SSO does not set one either. Where no email chooser is shown, the web UI uses your account's primary email.

What you can do today:

1. Add your work email as an additional verified email (Settings > Emails > Add email address), without making it your primary. This also addresses the recovery point raised in the comments: an added verified email is not a recovery address unless you make it your primary or backup email, so you can keep a personal address as your primary while using your work email for commit attribution.

2. Use the email chooser where GitHub offers one. For example, when you commit a file edit in the browser, the commit form lets you pick which verified email to associate with the commit — choose your work email there.

3. For operations with no chooser, such as creating a repository from a template in the browser, there is no web-only way around the primary-email default other than temporarily switching your primary email, as you noted. Avoid the web template flow instead: clone the template locally, start a fresh repository with your work email set locally, and push it to a new empty repository:

git clone https://github.com/OWNER/TEMPLATE.git my-repo
cd my-repo
rm -rf .git
git init
git config user.email "you@work.example"
git add .
git commit -m "Initial commit"

For local work in general, set the email per repository with git config user.email "you@work.example", or per directory with a conditional include in ~/.gitconfig:

[includeIf "gitdir:~/work/"]
    path = ~/.gitconfig-work

with ~/.gitconfig-work containing your work user.email. That covers local clones, but not web operations.

So the per-organization setting you propose does not exist yet. The workarounds are to add (not promote) the work email, choose it wherever a chooser is offered, and use local Git for the operations that offer no chooser.

[henrythor]

It's not a secret that this currently isn't a feature nor was this a question, it's product feedback and a feature request.