git-crypt0.7.0

Encrypts selected files inside a Git repository while leaving them visible as ordinary files to collaborators working with the project. Protected content is encrypted when committed and transparently decrypted when checked out, allowing one repository to contain both public and private material. This solves the problem of keeping credentials, configuration, or other sensitive project files under Git’s version control without a separate file-handling workflow.

Repository rules are defined in a checked-in .gitattributes file, whose wildcard patterns identify what git-crypt should protect. Those rules must be in place before sensitive files are added, and the attributes file itself, along with files such as .gitignore and .gitmodules, should not be encrypted. After git-crypt init or git-crypt unlock has prepared the repository, ordinary Git commands handle the encrypted files automatically. Collaborators who do not possess the secret key can still clone and commit to the repository, while protected files remain encrypted to them.

Access can be shared through GPG by identifying a recipient with a key ID, full fingerprint, email address, or another unique public-key identifier; git-crypt stores the GPG-encrypted key file in the repository’s .git-crypt directory. A symmetric secret key provides another sharing method, with GPG not required and no additional key file placed in the repository, though the key must be conveyed securely. Designed for Git users rather than general-purpose file management, git-crypt is published by Andrew Ayer as a Windows System Tools program for x64 systems, with version 0.7.0. It remains relatively immature, with documentation, features, and ease of use still developing, and releases before 1.0 may introduce backward-incompatible changes.