Git Transfer Semantics
AI Crawler / Raw View: Fetch this page as raw Markdown at
/reference/git-transfer.md. Cloud Harness MCP enforces strict isolation between repository execution containers and GitHub credentials.
The Transfer Problem
Standard coding agent sandboxes either:
- Embed the user's GitHub Personal Access Token or SSH key directly into the container filesystem or environment (allowing arbitrary scripts or dependencies to steal the credential), or
- Forbid remote push entirely, requiring manual user intervention.
The Sibling Helper Solution
Cloud Harness solves this with an ephemeral sibling Git helper:
[ Workspace Container ] (no network, no token)
▲
│ (local disk mount)
▼
[ Host Repo Directory ]
▲
│ (local disk mount)
▼
[ Sibling Git Helper ] ──(token over stdin)──► [ github.com:owner/repo.git ]- The agent invokes
git_push(refspec, forceWithLease?, expectedRemoteOid?). - The Runner starts an ephemeral Alpine container with network access scoped only to
github.com. - The Runner streams an installation token over
stdininto the helper'sgit-credentialhelper. - The helper executes the push against the remote origin and immediately exits.
- The container is destroyed. The token is never written to disk or
.git/config.