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Create your first profile

A profile is a named Git identity. At minimum it carries a display label, an author name, and an email; optionally a signing key and a color. GitPersona helps you build the first one from what's already on your machine.

The onboarding scan

On first launch, GitPersona runs a read-only scan of your system and shows what it finds in a short wizard:

  • Detected identity — the user.name, user.email, and signing key from your global Git config, if present.
  • SSH keys — key pairs discovered under ~/.ssh, shown by algorithm and fingerprint. You choose which to import.
  • Credentials — usernames your OS vault already holds for supported hosts. Only the username is read; the secret is never touched during the scan.

Accepting the scan creates your first profile from the detected identity and imports the SSH keys you selected.

Note: The scan is non-destructive. Nothing is written until you confirm — it only reads your existing configuration to pre-fill the form.

Profile fields

These are the fields on a profile:

label
A human-readable name for the profile, such as Work or Personal. This is what you select when switching.
name
The author name written to user.name when the profile is active.
email
The author email written to user.email.
signing_key (optional)
A reference to an existing signing key for signed commits. Leave it empty if you don't sign. See GPG signing.
color (optional)
A color used to make the profile easy to recognize at a glance in the app.

Creating a profile manually

You can add profiles at any time from the Profiles view:

  1. Open the Profiles view.
  2. Create a new profile and fill in the label, name, and email.
  3. Optionally set a signing key and a color.
  4. Save. The profile is now available to activate and to assign keys and credentials to.

There is no limit on the number of profiles. Next, attach an SSH key or an HTTPS credential, or learn how switching applies a profile.

Skipping onboarding

You can skip the onboarding wizard and set everything up later. GitPersona remembers that you've completed or skipped first-run setup and won't prompt you again.