ShareYourGroupShareYourGroupError Explainer

Git: Author identity unknown, please tell me who you are

A plain-words explanation of this Git message: what it means, the usual causes, and the steps that fix it.

The messageAuthor identity unknown *** Please tell me who you are.

Make the error yourself

Run with git version 2.56.0.windows.4. This is the smallest example we could find that shows it.

Setup used before these commands (a practice folder with no data)
git init -q -b main
echo hello > f.txt
git add f.txt

Commands

git commit -m "first commit"

Git prints (the real message)

Author identity unknown

*** Please tell me who you are.

Run

  git config --global user.email "you@example.com"
  git config --global user.name "Your Name"

to set your account's default identity.
Omit --global to set the identity only in this repository.

fatal: unable to auto-detect email address (got 'you@your-computer.(none)')

Why it happens

Every commit records who made it, with a name and an email address. Git reads them from its configuration. On a new computer, or after a fresh install, nothing has been set, so Git stops at the first commit and tells you how to set the two values. The message prints the exact commands. Using --global stores the identity for all your projects, and leaving it out stores it only for the current repository.

How to fix it

  1. Set your name and email for all projects: git config --global user.name "Your Name" and git config --global user.email "you@example.com".
  2. For one project only, run the same commands without --global inside that project (the fixed example does this).
  3. Check the result with git config --list | grep user.
  4. If you use GitHub, use the address that your account allows, or the private "noreply" address from your GitHub email settings, if you do not want to show your real email in public commits.

The corrected version

Commands

git config user.name "Asha Rao"
git config user.email "asha@example.com"
git commit -m "first commit"

Git prints (the corrected version)

[main (root-commit) ff30d89] first commit
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
 create mode 100644 f.txt

How to avoid it

Set the identity once, globally, when you install Git on a new computer.

Questions

Will this change commits I already made?

No. Commits that were already made keep the identity they were made with.

This is an independent guide. It is not connected with Python, Microsoft, Google, GitHub or the Git project. Product names belong to their owners. Examples were run on 13 November 2026 in a practice folder or a blank workbook; your version may word a message slightly differently.