git-hub(1)

NAME

git-hub - Do GitHub operations from the git command -

SYNOPSIS

Here is just a few of the things you can do on GitHub with a simple command:

git hub                             # Show the `git hub` cheat sheet
git hub help                        # Show this awesome documentation
git hub setup                       # Config dialog. Do this first!

git hub user <user>                 # Get info about a user
git hub repos <owner>               # List recent repositories
git hub new <repo>                  # Create a new repository
git hub fork <owner>/<repo>         # Fork a repository
git hub clone <owner>/<repo>        # Clone a GitHub repository
                                    # Set/Change your repo description
git hub repo-edit <repo> description 'Just another GitHub repo'
git hub delete <owner>/<repo>       # Delete a repository
git hub followers <user>            # List a user's followers
git hub star ingydotnet/git-hub     # Star this repository
git hub follow ingydotnet           # Follow this author
git hub trust ingydotnet            # Add collaborators to repo
                                    # Stalk all your followers
git hub followers -ra | git hub user -

DESCRIPTION

The hub subcommand for git, allows you to perform many of the operations made available by GitHub’s v3 REST API, from the git commandline command.

You can fork, create, delete and modify repositories. You can get information about users, repositories and issues. You can star, watch and follow things, and find out who else is doing the same. The API is quite extensive. With this command you can do many of your day to day GitHub actions without needing a web browser.

You can also chain commands together using the output of one as the input of another. For example you could use this technique to clone all the repos of a GitHub user or organization, with one command. See PIPE AND EACH below.

INSTALLATION

Get the source code from GitHub:

git clone git@github.com:ingydotnet/git-hub

Then run:

make test
make install        # Possibly with 'sudo'

This will install git-hub next to your other git commands. It will also install the git-hub manpage so you can run theses commands for help:

git help hub
man git-hub

To try git-hub without installing it, run this command:

export GIT_EXEC_PATH=/path-to-git-hub-repo/lib:$(git --exec-path)

OPTIONS

Commandline options start with a dash and can appear in any order in the command.

-c <number>

--count=<number>

This option is for commands that return a list of things. Specify the number of items you want the command to return. Each list command has a reasonable default value.

-a

--all

Show all elements for list commands. Also applies to a few other commands as documented.

-r

--raw

For commands the produce lists, just list the raw data. For commands that produce reports, show the raw storage keys, rather than the human friendly ones. You will need the raw keys to edit/change values.

-j

--json

For some commands, you can get the raw data in JSON.

-

This option, just a single -, is small but very powerful. It means to read the next line from stdin, and put the content into the command at that point. See PIPE and EACH below.

-h

Show the brief command usage.

--help

Show the full documentation.

-q

--quiet

Show minimal output.

-v

--verbose

Show detailed output. Notably, show the raw command that is used for the GitHub API calls.

--token=<api-token>

Set or override the api-token required by the command. This value can also come from the GIT_HUB_API_TOKEN environment variable. Usually this value comes from your ~/.githubconfig file.

-d

--dryrun

Don’t actually make the API call. This option turns on verbose mode.

-T

Show the API token in the verbose output. Hidden by default. This option turns on verbose mode.

-A

--use-auth

Use authentication whether or not it is needed for a certain command. This is useful if you have exceeded your hourly GitHub API rate limit, which is 60 calls unauthenticated, and 5000 calls authenticated.

-C

--no-cache

There are currently known bugs in GitHub’s cache headers. If the content seems stale, use this option.

DEBUG OPTIONS

There are a number of debug options that will give you lots of extra information (albeit in a less pretty format).

-O

Show the API reponse output. Always in JSON format. JSON is pretty-printed.

-H

Show the API response headers.

-J

Show the API response JSON, in decoded form.

-R

Repeat the last command, using the previous API server response. Useful for development and debugging. (Beware, only caches the most recent API call, so not really good for commands that make multiple calls).

-x

Turn on Bash -x debugging. This will show every bash command executed in the program.

ARGUMENTS

The git hub command gets its input values from these sources (in this order):

• Commandline arguments (see specific command, below).

• Environment variables of the form GIT_HUB_VARIABLE_NAME.

• The ./.git/config file. (The repo you are issuing commands from)

• The ~/.githubconfig file.

Most of the commands described below have arguments. This section defines each of the argument types. Note that argument values that are strings containing whitespace need to be quoted.

Argument variable names are always indicated by angle brackets, like: <variable>. Arguments listed in square brackets are optional and arguments followed by ... indicate that more than one is allowed.

<user>

A GitHub user name. Sometimes an organization name can be used instead. If this argument is optional, it defaults to the GitHub owner of the repo you are currently in. If you are not in a GitHub repo, it defaults to your login. Override: GIT_HUB_USER_NAME environment variable.

<owner>

A GitHub user or organization that owns the repository being specified. This value defaults much like the <user> argument (above). Override: GIT_HUB_OWNER_NAME environment variable.

<org>

A GitHub organization name. Override: GIT_HUB_ORG_NAME environment variable.

<repo>

A GitHub repository name. If this argument is optional, it defaults to the GitHub repo name of the repo you are currently in. Override: GIT_HUB_REPO_NAME environment variable.

<owner>/<repo>

Many commands need both an owner and repo separated by a slash. If the owner is you (your GitHub login) you can omit it (but you still need the leading slash). Like /myrepo, instead of me/myrepo. If this argument is optional, it defaults the the owner and repo of the GitHub repo you are in.

<key-value-pair>

Two strings separated by whitespace. Values with embedded whitespace should be quoted. The documentation of each command that needs these pairs, will list the valid keys.

<api-token-id>

The integer number id of a token (not the 40 hex-character value).

<scope-name>

One of the GitHub scopes that you can apply to a token. The git hub scope-list command will tell you all of these, and what they mean.

COMMANDS

These are the commands you can use to perform most of your daily GitHub interactions from the command line.

setup

Before you can use the commands described below, you need to perform some setup/configuration steps.

This "wizard" style dialog, will walk you through the configuration
process quickly and painlessly, with lots of explanation. You should run
this command right away. You can also re-run it, and it will allow you to
change your config, while defaulting to your existing settings.

If you would rather do the steps by hand, see CONFIGURATION COMMANDS
below.

user [<user>]

Show basic information about a specific user. User defaults to the owner of the current repo, or your login if you are not inside a repo directory. The --raw and --json options show the data in different formats than normal output.

user-get <user> <data-key>

Get a specific data value for a particular user.

user-edit <user> <key-value-pair>…​

Set specific meta-data fields of a user to new values. You list the parameters as key/value pairs.

You can edit the following user keys: `name`, `email`, `blog`,
`location`, `company`, `bio`.

orgs [<user>]

List the organizations that a user is a member of.

org <org>

Show basic information about a GitHub organization. The --raw and --json options show the data in different formats than normal output.

org-get <org> <data-key>

Get a specific data value for a particular organization.

org-edit <org> <key-value-pairs>…​

Set specific meta-data fields of an organization to new values. You list the parameters as key/value pairs.

You can edit the following organization keys: `name`, `email`,
`billing_email`, `blog`, `location`, `company`.

members <org>

List the members of an organization.

teams <org>

List the teams in an organization.

followers [<user>]

List the people who are followers of a user.

follows <user> [<target-user>]

Check if <user> follows <target-user>. The default target user is you.

following [<user>]

List the people that a user is following.

follow <user>…​

Follow one or more users.

unfollow <user>…​

Stop following one or more users.

clone ([<owner>/]<repo> [<directory>])…​

Clone a GitHub repo. Always uses --recursive so you get submodules too. You can specifiy a list of repos. If you specify a directory for a repo, it should be an absolute path name or else begin with ./ or ../ so that it can be distinguished from another repo name.

repos [<user>]

List the repos for a user or organization. List is returned in order of recent activity.

repo [<repo>]

Show basic information about a specific repository. The --raw and --json options show the data in different formats than normal output.

repo-get <owner>/<repo> <data-key>

Get a specific data value for a particular repository.

repo-edit [<owner>/<repo>] <key-value-pair>…​

Set specific meta-data fields of a repository to new values. You list the parameters as key/value pairs.

You can edit the following repo keys: `description`, `homepage`.

repo-new [<org>/]<repo>

Create a new GitHub repository.

repo-delete <owner>/<repo>

Delete a GitHub repository.

forks [<owner>/<repo>]

List the forks of a repository.

fork <owner>/<repo> [<org>]

Fork a repository to your account or to an organization.

stars [<owner>/<repo>]

Show what users have starred a repository.

star [<owner>/<repo>]

Add your star to a repository.

unstar [<owner>/<repo>]

Add your star to a repository.

starred [<user>]

List repositories that a user has starred.

collabs [<owner>/<repo>]

List current collaborators for a repository.

trust [<owner>/<repo>] <user>…​

Add one or more collaborators to a repository.

untrust [<owner>/<repo>] <user>…​

Remove one or more collaborators from a repository.

issues [<owner>/<repo>]

List the issues for a repo.

issue [<owner>/<repo>] <issue-id-number>

Show info (including any comments) for a specific issue.

issue-new [<owner>/<repo>]

Create a new issue for a repository.

issue-comment [<owner>/<repo>] <issue-id-number> [<comment-text-string>]

Add a comment to an issue. If no comment string is given, the command will open your default editor and let you enter the text.

issue-close [<owner>/<repo>] <issue-id-number> [<comment-text-string>]

Close an issue with an option comment. If you use the string …​ as your comment, your ediitor will be opened to allow you to type in your comment text.

CONFIGURATION COMMANDS

These commands are for editing your git-hub config file and managing your GitHub authentication tokens.

config [<config-key> [<config-value>]]

With no args, this command will print the contents of ~/.githubconfig. With one argument (a key), print the current value of the config key. With two arguments (key value), set the value of the config key. 4 keys are currently supported: login, api-token, use-auth, and json-lib.

config-unset <config-key>

Unset a config key. Removes the key from the ~/.githubconfig file.

token-list

List all the API tokens for your GitHub account. Use the --raw option to print the token IDs and descriptions, but not the actual token values.

token-new [<description-string>]

Create a new API token for your GitHub login id. Note: Creating a new token will not automatically add it to your ~/.githubconfig file; you need to do that yourself with the git hub config api-token <token-value> command. Use the --raw option to just print the new token id.

token-get <api-token-id> <data-key> Get a specific data value for a particular token.

token-delete <api-token-id>

Delete one of your API tokens for your GitHub login id. Note: You need to delete tokens by id (listed by the token-list command), not by token value.

scope-list <api-token-id>

List the scopes assigned to your API token, and also list all the possible scope values that you can assign. Use the --raw option to just list the scopes.

scope-add <api-token-id> <scope-name>…​

Add one or more scopes to your API token. You can use the --all option to add all possible scopes at once.

scope-remove <api-token-id> <scope-name>…​

Remove one or more scopes from your API token. You can use the --all option to remove all possible scopes at once.

FASTER

The git-hub command is written in pure Bash, including a complete JSON parser written in Bash. Unfortunately, this parser is slow. It is really slow for large API payloads.

To make the git-hub command perform much faster, just run this command:

git hub config json-lib json-perl.bash

That will enable a Perl replacement, which requires Perl (of course) and the JSON.pm Perl module. If the JSON::XS Perl module is also installed, it will be even faster.

PIPE AND EACH

You can pipe the output of one git hub into another and multiply your power. The command being piped into should use the EACH option which is a single dash (-). It will cause the command to be run once for each line of input, inserting the line into the command, in place of the -.

This command:

git hub followers --raw

will list lines containing only user ids. You can pipe it into commands needing a user id, like:

git hub followers --raw | git hub user - --json

Thus printing the JSON user info for each follower. Same as:

for _ in `git hub followers --raw`; do
    git hub user $_ --json
done

TOKEN AUTHENTICATION AND SCOPES

Many endpoints of the GitHub v3 API require a Personal API Access Token. You can list your current tokens with this command:

git hub token-list

If you don’t have any tokens or want a new one for the git-hub command, run these commands (the git hub setup command automates this):

git hub token-new "my git-hub command token"
git hub scope-add <token-id> user repo
git hub scope-list <token-id>
git hub config api-token <token-value>

You can also see all your tokens on the web at this page.

You can specify your API token to git hub on the commandline with --token=... or in the GIT_HUB_API_TOKEN environment variable, but the easiest thing to do is just set it in the git-hub config.

Certain token scopes are required for various GitHub API operations. Make sure your token has the scopes turned on for the things you want to do. See the scope-list, scope-add and scope-remove git hub subcommands.

Note	All the git hub commands dealing with tokens and scopes require you to enter your GitHub password. If you need to issue a bunch of these commands and you don’t want to retype your password each time, you can put your password in the GIT_HUB_PASSWORD environment variable.

RATE LIMITS

GitHub limits unauthenticated API calls to 60 per hour, and authenticated API calls to 5000 per hour. For this reason you may wish to use authentication even for calls that don’t need it. You can use the -A/--use-auth option to make sure a command uses authentication. You can also set the config file to always use authentication, with this command:

git hub config use-auth true

Another option is to set the GIT_HUB_USE_AUTH environment variable:

export GIT_HUB_USE_AUTH=true

ETAG CACHING

GitHub provides ETag headers in the API responses, and git-hub uses them to cache responses, by default. When you use this feature, your rate-limit usage is not affected for cached responses.

Unfortunately, there is currently a bug in GitHub’s API implementation: ETag values are not always updated for changed response content. This means that your cache may get stale.

There are a few things you can do, if you suspect the cache is stale:

• Use the -C (--no-cache) flag on a request to bypass the cache.

• Set GIT_HUB_NO_CACHE=true to bypass the cache.

• Run git hub config no-cache true to never use the cache.

• Run git hub cache-clear to erase all the cached values.

EXAMPLES

The following sections show lots of interesting ways to use git hub. Let your imagination be your guide.

EXAMPLE 1. Create a new repo and GitHub origin

Do everything from the command line:

$ mkdir foo
$ cd foo
$ echo 'The new foo' > README
$ git init
$ git add README
$ git commit -m 'First commit'
$ git hub new foo
$ git hub repo foo      # Get repo info including the remote address
$ git remote add origin <new-remote-address>
$ git push origin master
$ git hub repo-edit \
    description  'The new foo' \
    homepage     http://example.com
$ git hub repo

Note that on the last two commands you don’t need to set the <repo> because it can be gleaned from the remote. Also on the edit command notice how you can specify multiple key/value pairs.

EXAMPLE 2. Commands from within a repo

Assume your current working directory is not a GitHub repo:

$ # List *your* repos:
$ git hub repos
$ # Clone someone else's repo:
$ git hub clone ingydotnet/git-hub
$ # cd into it:
$ cd git-hub
$ # Get info about ingydotnet:
$ git hub user
$ # Show ingydotnet's recent repos:
$ git hub repos
$ # Show info about ingydotnet/git-hub:
$ git hub repo
$ # Fork the git-hub repo:
$ git hub fork
$ # Follow ingydotnet:
$ git hub follow
$ # See who ingydotnet is following:
$ git hub following
$ # Star the ingydotnet/git-hub repo:
$ git hub star
$ # etc...

The git hub command tries to be environmentally aware. If you are in a GitHub cloned repo directory, and you don’t specify <user> or <owner> or <repo> for a command that needs them, then they will be pulled from the remote url. Otherwise, if you don’t specify a <user> it will use the one (presumably yours) that you set with the git hub config login ... command.

EXAMPLE 3. Building Complex Commands

The git hub command can be used to output raw data, which can be fed into other commands; even other git hub commands. This lets you do some powerful automation with very little code. The --raw (-r) flag will make the output of many commands be usable as data, and the - (EACH) option makes commands read data from stdin.

Get information about all your followers:

for user in $(git hub followers <your-login> -ar); do
    git hub user $user
done

Or more simply by using PIPE and EACH:

git hub followers -ar | git hub user -

Follow all your followers:

git hub followers -ar | git hub follow -

Find out if the people you are following, are following you!

git hub following -ar | git hub follows -

Clone all the repos in an organization:

git hub repos <org> -ar | git hub clone -

Star the latest 5 repos from all the people you are following that have more than 50 repos:

git hub following <your-login> -ar |
    git hub user-get - public_repos |
    perl -nle 'print if $_ > 50' |
    git hub repos - -rc5 |
    git hub star -

AUTHOR

Written by Ingy döt Net <ingy@ingy.net>

STATUS

This command is still in early development. The plan is to support as much of the API as possible. Patches / Pull Requests welcome. See the file notes/todo in the git-hub repo for upcoming changes.

Try make test. There are tests in place but testing is not yet extensive. Expect more testing soon. Also please include tests-in-kind for any patches you submit.

This command is attempting to follow the guidelines for git command development, so that it may one day be a standard command for git.

Find ingy on irc.freenode.net if you have questions or ideas.