Git Commit Signing: Limitations of Traditional Approaches and Future Prospects

This article explores the current state and challenges of Git commit signing. Traditional methods like GPG signing suffer from complexities in key management and risks associated with long-lived identities. The author analyzes the shortcomings of GPG, SSH, and S/MIME signing on platforms like GitHub and GitLab, and introduces emerging solutions such as Sigstore's Gitsign and OpenPubkey. These leverage short-lived identities and transparency logs to enhance security, but currently have limitations. The author ultimately suggests prioritizing SSH key management and branch protection rules until Sigstore solutions mature.