# HTTP credentials

uv supports credentials over HTTP when querying package registries.

Authentication can come from the following sources, in order of precedence:

- The URL, e.g., `https://<user>:<password>@<hostname>/...`
- A [netrc](#netrc-files) configuration file
- The uv credentials store
- A [keyring provider](#keyring-providers) (off by default)

Authentication may be used for hosts specified in the following contexts:

- `[index]`
- `index-url`
- `extra-index-url`
- `find-links`
- `package @ https://...`

## netrc files

[`.netrc`](https://everything.curl.dev/usingcurl/netrc) files are a long-standing plain text format
for storing credentials on a system.

Reading credentials from `.netrc` files is always enabled. The target file path will be loaded from
the `NETRC` environment variable if defined, falling back to `~/.netrc` if not.

## The uv credentials store

uv can read and write credentials from a store using the [`uv auth` commands](./cli.md).

Credentials are stored in a plaintext file in uv's state directory, e.g.,
`~/.local/share/uv/credentials/credentials.toml` on Unix. This file is currently not intended to be
edited manually.

!!! note

    A secure, system native storage mechanism is in [preview](../preview.md) — it is still
    experimental and being actively developed. In the future, this will become the default storage
    mechanism.

    When enabled, uv will use the secret storage mechanism native to your operating system. On
    macOS, it uses the Keychain Services. On Windows, it uses the Windows Credential Manager. On
    Linux, it uses the DBus-based Secret Service API.

    Currently, uv only searches the native store for credentials it has added to the secret store —
    it will not retrieve credentials persisted by other applications.

    Set `UV_PREVIEW_FEATURES=native-auth` to use this storage mechanism.

## Keyring providers

A keyring provider is a concept from `pip` allowing retrieval of credentials from an interface
matching the popular [keyring](https://github.com/jaraco/keyring) Python package.

The "subprocess" keyring provider invokes the `keyring` command to fetch credentials. uv does not
support additional keyring provider types at this time.

Set `--keyring-provider subprocess`, `UV_KEYRING_PROVIDER=subprocess`, or
`tool.uv.keyring-provider = "subprocess"` to use the provider.

## Persistence of credentials

If authentication is found for a single index URL or net location (scheme, host, and port), it will
be cached for the duration of the command and used for other queries to that index or net location.
Authentication is not cached across invocations of uv.

When using `uv add`, uv _will not_ persist index credentials to the `pyproject.toml` or `uv.lock`.
These files are often included in source control and distributions, so it is generally unsafe to
include credentials in them. However, uv _will_ persist credentials for direct URLs, i.e.,
`package @ https://username:password:example.com/foo.whl`, as there is not currently a way to
otherwise provide those credentials.

If credentials were attached to an index URL during `uv add`, uv may fail to fetch dependencies from
indexes which require authentication on subsequent operations. See the
[index authentication documentation](../indexes.md#authentication) for details on persistent
authentication for indexes.

## Learn more

See the [index authentication documentation](../indexes.md#authentication) for details on
authenticating index URLs.

See the [`pip` compatibility guide](../../pip/compatibility.md#registry-authentication) for details
on differences from `pip`.