Please describe the problem.

git takes "Boolean true literals are yes, on, true, and 1."

IMHO git-annex should centrally/uniformly handle all boolean values for all configuration and remote settings.

majority of the boolean variable settings e.g. for special remotes in examples etc use yes. But examples with autoenable seems to use true and having yes causes git-annex to not autoenable it:

$> (set -x ; ds=ds002396; rm -rf $ds; git clone https://github.com/OpenNeuroDatasets/$ds.git && git -C $ds show origin/git-annex:remote.log && git -C $ds annex init && git -C $ds annex info | grep -i s3-public )
+zsh:194> ds=ds002396 
+zsh:194> rm -rf ds002396
+zsh:194> git clone https://github.com/OpenNeuroDatasets/ds002396.git
Cloning into 'ds002396'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 93, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (93/93), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (56/56), done.
remote: Total 93 (delta 19), reused 93 (delta 19), pack-reused 0
Receiving objects: 100% (93/93), 9.30 KiB | 414.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (19/19), done.
+zsh:194> git -C ds002396 show origin/git-annex:remote.log
6b554bb8-47cc-4f88-b3f0-b4becdb80272 autoenable=yes bucket=openneuro.org datacenter=US encryption=none exporttree=yes fileprefix=ds002396/ host=s3.amazonaws.com name=s3-PUBLIC partsize=1GiB port=80 public=yes publicurl=http://openneuro.org.s3.amazonaws.com/ storageclass=STANDARD type=S3 versioning=yes timestamp=1579150706.611377263s
+zsh:194> git -C ds002396 annex init
init  (merging origin/git-annex into git-annex...)
(recording state in git...)

  Remote origin not usable by git-annex; setting annex-ignore
ok
(recording state in git...)
+zsh:194> git -C ds002396 annex info
+zsh:194> grep '--color=auto' -d skip -i s3-public
    6b554bb8-47cc-4f88-b3f0-b4becdb80272 -- s3-PUBLIC

whenever it autoenables if I explicitly replace yes with true here:

$> ds=ds002396; rm -rf $ds*; ( git clone https://github.com/OpenNeuroDatasets/$ds.git && cd $ds && git checkout git-annex && sed -i -e 's,autoenable=yes,autoenable=true,g' remote.log && git commit -m "fix yes to true" -a && git checkout master; ) && git clone $ds $ds-clone && git -C $ds-clone annex init
Cloning into 'ds002396'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 93, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (93/93), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (56/56), done.
remote: Total 93 (delta 19), reused 93 (delta 19), pack-reused 0
Receiving objects: 100% (93/93), 9.30 KiB | 4.65 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (19/19), done.
CHANGES  dataset_description.json  sub-01/  sub-02/
Branch 'git-annex' set up to track remote branch 'git-annex' from 'origin'.
Switched to a new branch 'git-annex'
[git-annex 3770aed] fix yes to true
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
Switched to branch 'master'
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/master'.
Cloning into 'ds002396-clone'...
done.
init  (merging origin/git-annex into git-annex...)
(recording state in git...)
(Auto enabling special remote s3-PUBLIC...)
ok
(recording state in git...)

FWIW -- above examples are with git annex 7.20190819+git2-g908476a9b-1~ndall+1 but initially investigated using 8.20200330+git28-g7ebc11877-1~ndall+1

References: initial report on neurostars