To authenticate we recommend using OAuth tokens, such a personal access token through the OAuth web flow.
Basic Authentication
The API supports Basic Authentication as defined in RFC2617 with a few slight differences. The main difference is that the RFC requires unauthenticated requests to be answered with 401 Unauthorized responses. In many places, this would disclose the existence of user data. Instead, the GitHub AE API responds with 404 Not Found. This may cause problems for HTTP libraries that assume a 401 Unauthorized response. The solution is to manually craft the Authorization header.
Via OAuth and personal access tokens
We recommend you use OAuth tokens to authenticate to the GitHub API. OAuth tokens include personal access tokens and enable the user to revoke access at any time.
$ curl -u username:token https://api.[hostname]/userThis approach is useful if your tools only support Basic Authentication but you want to take advantage of OAuth access token security features.