About GitHub CLI
GitHub CLI is an open source tool for using GitHub from your computer's command line. When you're working from the command line, you can use the GitHub CLI to save time and avoid switching context.
Prerequisites
-
Install GitHub CLI on macOS, Windows, or Linux. For more information, see Installation in the GitHub CLI repository.
-
Authenticate with GitHub by running this command from your terminal.
gh auth login
-
Follow the on-screen prompts.
GitHub CLI automatically stores your Git credentials for you when you choose HTTPS as your preferred protocol for Git operations and answer "yes" to the prompt asking if you would like to authenticate to Git with your GitHub credentials. This can be useful as it allows you to use Git commands like
git push
andgit pull
without needing to set up a separate credential manager or use SSH.
Some useful commands
Note: When you use some commands for the first time - for example, gh codespace SUBCOMMAND
- you'll be prompted to add extra scopes to your authentication token. Follow the onscreen instructions.
Viewing your status
Enter gh status
to see details of your current work on GitHub across all the repositories you're subscribed to.
Viewing a repository
Enter gh repo view OWNER/REPO
to see the repository description and README.md
for the repository. Enter gh repo view OWNER/REPO --web
to view the repository in your default browser.
If you run the repo
subcommand from within the directory of a local Git repository that has a remote on GitHub you can omit OWNER/REPO
.
Cloning a repository
Enter gh repo clone OWNER/REPO
. For example, gh repo clone octo-org/octo-repo
clones the octo-org/octo-repo
repository to the directory from which you ran this command on your local computer.
Creating a repository
Enter gh repo create
and follow the on-screen instructions. You can create a new, empty repository on GitHub and then, optionally, clone it locally. Alternatively, you can push an existing local repository to GitHub, and optionally set it as the remote for your local repository. For information on setting a local directory as a Git repository, see "Adding locally hosted code to GitHub."
Working with issues
Enter gh issue list --repo OWNER/REPO
to list the most recently created issues that are currently open for the specified repository. If you run the issue
subcommand from within the directory of a local Git repository that has a remote on GitHub you can omit --repo OWNER/REPO
. For example, enter gh issue list --assignee "@me"
to list issues assigned to you in this repository, or gh issue list --author monalisa
to list issues created by the user "monalisa."
You can also create a new issue, see "Creating an issue," or search for an issue, see "Filtering and searching issues and pull requests."
Working with pull requests
Enter gh pr list --repo OWNER/REPO
to list the most recently created pull requests that are currently open for the specified repository. If you run the pr
subcommand from within the directory of a local Git repository that has a remote on GitHub you can omit --repo OWNER/REPO
. For example, enter gh pr list --author "@me"
to list open pull requests that you created in this repository.
Enter gh pr list --label LABEL-NAME
to list open pull requests with a specific label. Enter gh search prs --review-requested=@me --state=open
to list pull requests that you've been asked to review.
To create a pull request, enter gh pr create
and follow the on-screen instructions. For more information, see "Creating a pull request."
Working with codespaces
To create a new codespace, enter gh codespace create
and follow the on-screen instructions.
To display your existing codespaces, enter gh codespace list
. To open a codespace in the web version of VS Code enter gh codespace code -w
and choose a codespace .
In all of these commands you can substitute cs
for codespace
.
Getting help
Enter gh
for a reminder of the top-level GitHub CLI commands that you can use. For example, issue
, pr
, repo
, and so on.
For each command, and each subsidiary subcommand, you can append the --help
flag to find out how it's used. For example, gh issue --help
or gh issue create --help
.
Customizing GitHub CLI
You can change configuration settings and add aliases or extensions, to make GitHub CLI work the way that suits you best.
-
Enter
gh config set SUBCOMMANDS
to configure GitHub CLI's settings, replacingSUBCOMMANDS
with the setting you want to adjust.For example, you can specify the text editor that's used when a GitHub CLI command requires you to edit text - such as when you add the body text for a new issue you're creating. To set your preferred text editor to Visual Studio Code enter
gh config set editor "code -w"
. The-w
(or--wait
) flag in this example causes the command to wait for the file to be closed in Visual Studio Code before proceeding with the next step in your terminal.For more information, see
gh config set
. -
Define aliases for commands that you commonly run. For example, if you run
gh alias set prd "pr create --draft"
, you will then be able to rungh prd
to quickly open a draft pull request. For more information, seegh alias
. -
Create or add custom commands with GitHub CLI extensions. For more information, see "Using GitHub CLI extensions" and "Creating GitHub CLI extensions."