GitHub

Set up GitHub on your local Linux machine to work from the command line.

Requirements

• A Linux client
• A GitHub account

Sources

• GitHub Docs

Guide

This is a quick summary of Get started by GitHub. It's aim is to help you start working with a GitHub repo ASAP, not to explain Git in great detail.

I highly recommend reading About Git and Hello World.

GitHub CLI

GitHub CLI offers additional functionalities for interaction with GitHub (e.g. Issues). I do not use it at this time. However, it is required to authenticate in order to sync with GitHub repos.

Setup

Install Git

apt install git

Provide mandatory information

git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "you@example.com"

type -p curl >/dev/null || apt install curl -y
curl -fsSL https://cli.github.com/packages/githubcli-archive-keyring.gpg | dd of=/usr/share/keyrings/githubcli-archive-keyring.gpg \
&& chmod go+r /usr/share/keyrings/githubcli-archive-keyring.gpg \
&& echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/githubcli-archive-keyring.gpg] https://cli.github.com/packages stable main" | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/github-cli.list > /dev/null \
&& apt update \
&& apt install gh -y

Authenticate with GitHub

gh auth login

Visual Studio Code

VSCode's UI allows you to do everything we'll do here. It should also detect that you're using Git if you open the associated folder and offer Git actions in the third left menu.

To associate with VSCode, use the following magic:

git config --global core.editor "code --wait"

Cloning a repo

• Go to GitHub, open the wanted repository and click on the green <> Code button.
• Select HTTPS and copy the URL.
• Return to your terminal, navigate to the folder you want your repo to appear and enter the clone directive:

git clone <URL you copied>
cd <repo name>

Working with changes

Create a branch

git branch <branch>

Open a branch

git checkout <branch>

Stage a changed file

git add <file>

Add staged changes into Git history

git commit -m "<commit message>"

Check current change status

git status

Interacting with the remote repo

Synchronize local codebase with remote

git pull <remore URL> <branch>

Synchronize remote with changes made locally

git push <remote URL>

non-fast-forward error

If your local copy is behind the remote, you won't be able to push your changes. In order for it to work, git pull first.