GPG Commit Signatures

Forgejo will verify GPG commit signatures in the provided tree by checking if the commits are signed by a key within the Forgejo database, or if the commit matches the default key for Git.

Keys are not checked to determine if they have expired or revoked. Keys are also not checked with keyservers.

A commit will be marked with an unlocked icon if no key can be found to verify it.

Automatic Signing

There are a number of places where Forgejo will generate commits itself:

Repository Initialisation
Wiki Changes
CRUD actions using the editor or the API
Merges from Pull Requests

Installing and generating a GPG key for Forgejo

Forgejo generates all its commits using the server git command - and the gpg command will be used for signing.

General Configuration

Forgejo’s configuration for signing can be found with the [repository.signing] section of app.ini:

...
[repository.signing]
SIGNING_KEY = default
SIGNING_NAME =
SIGNING_EMAIL =
INITIAL_COMMIT = always
CRUD_ACTIONS = pubkey, twofa, parentsigned
WIKI = never
MERGES = pubkey, twofa, basesigned, commitssigned

...

`SIGNING_KEY`

There are three main options:

none - this prevents Forgejo from signing any commits
default - Forgejo will default to the key configured within git config
KEYID - Forgejo will sign commits with the gpg key with the ID KEYID. In this case you should provide a SIGNING_NAME and SIGNING_EMAIL to be displayed for this key.

The default option will interrogate git config for commit.gpgsign option - if this is set, then it will use the results of the user.signingkey, user.name and user.email.

By default, Forgejo will look for the signing key in [git].HOME_PATH/.gnupg.

However, this path differs from where GnuPG stores keys by default ($HOME/.gnupg).

There are 2 possible solutions here:

Move the .gnupg folder after importing/generating keys;
Set the GNUPGHOME environment variable to help Forgejo find the correct keychain.

`INITIAL_COMMIT`

This option determines whether Forgejo should sign the initial commit when creating a repository. The possible values are:

never: Never sign
pubkey: Only sign if the user has a public key
twofa: Only sign if the user logs in with two factor authentication
always: Always sign

Options other than never and always can be combined as a comma separated list. The commit will be signed if all selected options are true.

`WIKI`

This options determines if Forgejo should sign commits to the Wiki. The possible values are:

never: Never sign
pubkey: Only sign if the user has a public key
twofa: Only sign if the user logs in with two-factor authentication
parentsigned: Only sign if the parent commit is signed.
always: Always sign

Options other than never and always can be combined as a comma separated list. The commit will be signed if all selected options are true.

`CRUD_ACTIONS`

This option determines if Forgejo should sign commits from the web editor or API CRUD actions. The possible values are:

never: Never sign
pubkey: Only sign if the user has a public key
twofa: Only sign if the user logs in with two-factor authentication
parentsigned: Only sign if the parent commit is signed.
always: Always sign

Options other than never and always can be combined as a comma separated list. The change will be signed if all selected options are true.

`MERGES`

This option determines if Forgejo should sign merge commits from PRs. The possible options are:

never: Never sign
pubkey: Only sign if the user has a public key
twofa: Only sign if the user logs in with two-factor authentication
basesigned: Only sign if the parent commit in the base repo is signed.
headsigned: Only sign if the head commit in the head branch is signed.
commitssigned: Only sign if all the commits in the head branch to the merge point are signed.
approved: Only sign approved merges to a protected branch.
always: Always sign

Options other than never and always can be combined as a comma separated list. The merge will be signed if all selected options are true.

Obtaining the Public Key of the Signing Key

The public key used to sign Forgejo’s commits can be obtained from the API at:

/api/v1/signing-key.gpg

In cases where there is a repository specific key this can be obtained from:

/api/v1/repos/:username/:reponame/signing-key.gpg