How to prevent git global config from changing automatically?

My goal is to make the global git config name and email empty. I can do that, but after a while it gets reset to an old email I don't use anymore. I'm not sure why or how my /home/<user>/.gitconfig changes, but it does without my awareness.

I'm on Ubuntu 18.04, git 2.17.1.

Does anyone know how I can find what is changing my global config file and/or how I can prevent it from changing?

My global config settings if it's of any help (how I want it to be). Notice how the [user] group is empty:

[core]
        editor = nano
        pager = less -x1,5
[push]
        default = simple
[merge]
        tool = meld
[mergetool "meld"]
        path = /usr/bin/meld
[mergetool]
        prompt = false
[alias]
        adog2 = log --graph --abbrev-commit --decorate --format=format:'%C(bold blue)%h%C(reset) - %C(bold green)(%ar$
        adog = log --graph --abbrev-commit --decorate --format=format:'%C(bold blue)%h%C(reset) - %C(bold cyan)%aD%C($
        co = checkout
        s = status
        u = reset HEAD --
        last = log -1 HEAD
        st = status
        unstage = reset
[user]

This is how it becomes after a while (the name and email values are not real in this example):

[core]
        editor = nano
        pager = less -x1,5
[push]
        default = simple
[merge]
        tool = meld
[mergetool "meld"]
        path = /usr/bin/meld
[mergetool]
        prompt = false
[alias]
        adog2 = log --graph --abbrev-commit --decorate --format=format:'%C(bold blue)%h%C(reset) - %C(bold green)(%ar$
        adog = log --graph --abbrev-commit --decorate --format=format:'%C(bold blue)%h%C(reset) - %C(bold cyan)%aD%C($
        co = checkout
        s = status
        u = reset HEAD --
        last = log -1 HEAD
        st = status
        unstage = reset
[user]
        name = Some Fake Name
        email = [email protected]

And before anyone asks, I remove my global git config name and email so that when I clone new repos git asks explicitly for a user and email for that repo. This helps me to manage work and personal git accounts.

Solution

I managed to find the cause by setting up auditctl to monitor my global gitconfig file.

I set up -w /home/<user>/.gitconfig -p rwa -k gitconfig as a rule and read the logs with ausearch -k gitconfig --format text. Then I noticed this:

At 13:30:35 25/07/2022 <user> successfully opened-file /home/<user>/.gitconfig using /usr/share/atom/resources/app.asar.unpacked/node_modules/dugite/git/bin/git.

Then I successfully managed to reproduce this. Every time I opened a repository with Atom, Atom rewrote my global .gitconfig file.

It turns out the problem was Atom's github integration: https://github.com/atom/github/issues/2557. And that got solved in https://github.com/atom/github/pull/2587. I upgraded Atom to 1.60.0 and it fixed the issue.

Thanks @torek, for informing me this wasn't an expected behavior in my platform. And thanks @jthill, for giving me the idea to monitor the files changes.