Setup the GitHub CLI
Installation
The easiest way to install the GitHub CLI (henceforth gh
) under Linux or Mac is to use Homebrew:
🚀 ~ brew install gh
Under Linux, gh
is also available via snapd
on the edge
channel (dev builds).
🚀 ~ sudo snap install --edge gh
And under Windows, we can just use the MSI Installer.
Other installation instructions and methods are available at cli.github.com/manual/installation.
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Authentication
Before using the gh
, first, we need to authenticate in GitHub. To do that we run the following command in the terminal:
🚀 ~ gh auth login
We see that gh
wants us to choose between the Github.com account and the Github Enterprise Server account. The first one is a regular account we use to work in GitHub. Besides this, GitHub offers enterprise services, and the Github Enterprise Server account refers to that. See the page.
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For now, let’s choose a regular Github.com account. The next step requires us to choose an authentication method, either via a web browser or via an authentication token.
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1. Login with a web browser
The first method will provide us one-time code which we should paste on the GitHub authentication page located at github.com/login/device. This will authorize our device and it will be able to access our gists, teams, and repositories.
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If everything runs smoothly, we’ll see the Authentication complete
message in the terminal.
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2. Login with an authentication token
The second login method can be achieved by generating a personal authentication token in GitHub. To do that, we should go to github.com/settings/tokens.
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Once we click on the “Generate new token” button, a new window will open where we should describe the token and choose the permission scopes. GitHub CLI requires us to have at minimum repo
and read:org
permission scopes.
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We can now copy our newly generated token and paste it in the terminal.
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The last step: choosing a git protocol
Now, when we are authorized either via a web browser or an auth token, we can move to the last step, where we choose a Git protocol being used to interact with the GitHub host. We have two options there: HTTPS and SSH. I prefer to use SSH. If everything runs smoothly, we’ll be able to verify that we are logged in by running:
🚀 ~ gh auth status
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Whola! The setup is finished now. Phew… 🥴