DEV Community

Giulia Chiola
Giulia Chiola

Posted on • Originally published at giuliachiola.dev

How to speed up development with GitHub CLI

#git #shell #github

Wait, what?!

I was today years old when I found out that GitHub has a command line interface 🤯.


via GIPHY

In the official docs the instructions to install and use it are quite clear to follow.

Installation

I use brew to install GitHub CLI, so

brew install gh
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

did the magic in less then a minute.

Authorization

You have to authorize this application in order to use your GitHub account from the CLI:

gh auth login
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Answer few questions about CLI configuration, here's mines:

? What account do you want to log into? GitHub.com
? What is your preferred protocol for Git operations? SSH
? Upload your SSH public key to your GitHub account? /Users/giulia/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub
? Title for your SSH key: GitHub CLI
? How would you like to authenticate GitHub CLI? Login with a web browser

! First copy your one-time code: XXXX-XXXX
Press Enter to open github.com in your browser...
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

In your browser will appear this screen to confirm the authorization

authorize-github-cli

and you have to add your one-time code: XXXX-XXXX the prompt just gived to you

device-activation

Just few confirmation from the shell and we are almost done:

Press Enter to open github.com in your browser...
✓ Authentication complete.
- gh config set -h github.com git_protocol ssh
✓ Configured git protocol
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

congratulations

Ok, awesome! ✨

Let's run some commands!

To see all CLI configurations and options, just type

gh
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

that returns a list of useful commands divided into subgroups

CORE COMMANDS
  auth:        Authenticate gh and git with GitHub
  browse:      Open the repository in the browser
  codespace:   Connect to and manage codespaces
  gist:        Manage gists
  issue:       Manage issues
  pr:          Manage pull requests
  release:     Manage releases
  repo:        Manage repositories
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

As you can see above, you can manage lot of things from command line 😈 Below I listed my favourite ones.

Create a new repo

To create a new GitHub repository, run

gh repo create test-repository --private

✓ Created repository giuliachiola/test-repository on GitHub
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

test-repository-github

Note: you have to specify if you want the repo private or public.

GitHub repo list 

gh repo list
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

This is useful when you need to check on the fly a repo slug, url, or if it is private or not

Showing 30 of 47 repositories in @giuliachiola

giuliachiola/super-blog-11ty                       Blog built using 11ty static site generator, based on super-styleguide               public   2d
giuliachiola/super-blog-content                    Blog markdown content where documentation rules 📚                                    public   2d
giuliachiola/giuliachiola                                                                                                                public   9d
giuliachiola/eleventy-styleguide                   Custom pattern library tool using 11ty static site generator.                         public   9d
giuliachiola/super-notes                           Personal tech notes, not always well organized 😇                                     public   9d
giuliachiola/super-styleguide                      Personal blog styleguide built using UIengine as presentation layer                   public   Mar  5, 2022
giuliachiola/react-ts-ecommerce                    📒 Step by step from tutorial "React shopping cart with TypeScript | React Ecomme...  public   Mar  5, 2022
giuliachiola/dotfiles                              🛠.files - for fast MacBook setup                                                     public   Mar  5, 2022
giuliachiola/react-movies                          📒 Step by step from tutorial "React JS Course for Beginners 2021 Tutorial - free...  public   Oct  7, 2021
giuliachiola/react-ts-quiz-app                     📒 Step by step from tutorial "React / Typescript Tutorial - Build a Quiz App - W...  public   Oct  1, 2021
giuliachiola/react-typescript-herrington           📒 Step by step from tutorial "Typescript for React Components From Beginners to ...  public   Oct  1, 2021
...
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Change repo visibility

Change repo visibility is quite annoying from the browser, as you have to sift through lots of tabs and panels on the UI. Change visibility from the CLI instead, is nearly instantaneous:

gh repo edit <repo-name> --visibility <visibility-string>
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

For instance:

gh repo edit giuliachiola/super-blog-11ty --visibility private

✓ Edited repository giuliachiola/super-blog-11ty
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Sync repo

To pull everything in one go, you can also sync all your repo branches and config:

gh repo sync

✓ Synced the "main" branch from giuliachiola/super-blog-11ty to local repository
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Create new gist

Gist are a sort of "snippet" you can store on your GitHub account. They are quite useful to save one-shot configurations, and you can also save others gists in your favourites!

gh create gist
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode


via GIPHY

📚 More info

GitHub CLI Manual

Top comments (0)

Read next

himanshu_fb2e29b6b2f52338 profile image

🎉 𝗚𝗶𝘁 𝗖𝗵𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗦𝗵𝗲𝗲𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗛𝗮𝗰𝗸𝘁𝗼𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗲𝘀𝘁 2024! 🎉

Himanshu -

tirso_andrade profile image

Scopre Repository for Gitlab

Tirso Andrade -

ashwingopalsamy profile image

Git: Set Up Commit Signing with GPG on Mac ✅

Ashwin Gopalsamy -

vikkio88 profile image

OMZ: Some Plugins that I forget about

Vincenzo -