GPG Password Prompt Not Working in VSCode? Here's the Solution 🚀

Guide to Solving GPG Signed Commit Problems on VSCode and Arch Linux#

Signing commits with a GPG key is one of the most important ways to increase your security and reliability in the Git world. However, when using minimalist window managers like i3wm on Arch Linux and trying to work from VSCode terminal, you may encounter some specific problems. Especially when you have any AI extension active in VSCode while trying to commit, the password prompt may not work properly. Numbers or some keys behave like they're not being pressed; they're not detected even though you press them multiple times. 🙄

In this article, I'll explain step by step how I solved this problem, what caused it, and the best solution. My goal is to help you reach a process where you can confidently make signed commits, getting out of the "why isn't this password working!" nervous breakdown. 🚀

1. Why Are Signed Commits Important?#

Signing your Git commits with GPG proves that the changes you made truly belong to you. It provides reliability in projects and especially eliminates the "who wrote this code?" question in the open source world.

2. Where Does the Problem Come From?#

Normally, terminal-based input methods like pinentry-curses or pinentry-tty work properly when asking for password. But when VSCode's integrated terminal and especially AI extensions (such as code completion or assistant helpers) get involved, things get mixed up. The terminal's key capture mechanism breaks down; some numbers are not detected even though you press them multiple times. Result: you can't enter the password correctly no matter what.

Example situation#

$ git commit -S -m "Fix bug"
gpg: signing failed: No pinentry
error: gpg failed to sign the data

Or even more frustrating: The password prompt opens but keys work partially.

3. Checking Existing Pinentry Programs#

When you install the pinentry package on Arch Linux, actually many different versions come with it:

pacman -Ql pinentry | grep bin/

The output is usually as follows:

/usr/bin/pinentry
/usr/bin/pinentry-curses
/usr/bin/pinentry-emacs
/usr/bin/pinentry-gnome3
/usr/bin/pinentry-gtk
/usr/bin/pinentry-qt
/usr/bin/pinentry-qt5
/usr/bin/pinentry-tty

So we have many options including terminal-based (curses, tty) and GUI-based (gtk, qt, gnome3).

4. Solution: Using GUI Pinentry#

Here's the critical point: My problem was happening only when AI was running inside VSCode. While everything was fine in normal terminal, the password prompt was completely broken inside VSCode. The only way to overcome this was to use a GUI-based solution instead of terminal-based pinentry.

Correct configuration (GUI recommended):#

# ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf
pinentry-program /usr/bin/pinentry-gtk
default-cache-ttl 43200
max-cache-ttl 43200

Then restart the agent:

gpgconf --kill gpg-agent

5. Git Config Settings#

Make sure the following lines are in your .gitconfig file:

[user]
    name = YourUsername
    email = mail@example.com
    signingkey = KEY_ID

[gpg]
    program = gpg

[commit]
    gpgSign = true

To see your key ID:

gpg --list-secret-keys --keyid-format LONG

Add the long hex value from the sec line as signingkey.

6. Making Commit and Push#

If the commit phase passes without problems, a GUI window will open and ask for your password. After entering the password, the commit is successfully signed.

But remember: the commit is saved to the local repository. To make it visible on GitHub, you need to push.

git commit -S -m "Added new feature"
git push origin main

7. Workflow Recommendation#

1. Edit files

  git add .

1. Make signed commit

  git commit -S -m "Fix typo"

1. Send changes to GitHub

  git push origin main

8. Conclusion#

Now you've solved the "keys don't work, numbers aren't detected" problem when making GPG signed commits on VSCode, in the Arch Linux + i3wm environment ✅. Especially when working with AI extensions, if terminal-based pinentry fails, pinentry-gtk is your most reliable solution.

From now on, you'll see the proudly standing "Verified" tag next to your commits on GitHub. 🎉