GitHub Desktop connects to GitHub when you pull from, push to, clone, and fork remote repositories. To connect to GitHub from GitHub Desktop, you must authenticate your account. For more information, see "Authenticating to GitHub in GitHub Desktop."
After you authenticate to GitHub, you can connect to remote repositories with GitHub Desktop. GitHub Desktop caches your credentials (username and password or personal access token) and uses the credentials to authenticate for each connection to the remote repository.
GitHub Desktop connects to GitHub using HTTPS. If you use GitHub Desktop to access repositories that were cloned using SSH, you may encounter errors. To connect to a repository that was cloned using SSH, change the remote's URLs. For more information, see "Managing remote repositories."