GH-AUTH-LOGIN(1) GitHub CLI manual GH-AUTH-LOGIN(1) NAME gh-auth-login - Log in to a GitHub account SYNOPSIS gh auth login [flags] DESCRIPTION Authenticate with a GitHub host. The default hostname is github.com. This can be overridden using the --hostname flag. The default authentication mode is a web-based browser flow. After comple- tion, an authentication token will be stored securely in the system creden- tial store. If a credential store is not found or there is an issue using it gh will fallback to writing the token to a plain text file. See gh auth status for its stored location. Alternatively, use --with-token to pass in a personal access token (clas- sic) on standard input. The minimum required scopes for the token are: repo, read:org, and gist. Take care when passing a fine-grained personal access token to --with-token as the inherent scoping to certain resources may cause confusing behaviour when interacting with other resources. Favour setting GH_TOKEN for fine-grained personal access token usage. Alternatively, gh will use the authentication token found in environment variables. This method is most suitable for "headless" use of gh such as in automation. See gh help environment for more info. To use gh in GitHub Actions, add GH_TOKEN: ${{ github.token }} to env. The git protocol to use for git operations on this host can be set with --git-protocol, or during the interactive prompting. Although login is for a single account on a host, setting the git protocol will take effect for all users on the host. Specifying ssh for the git protocol will detect existing SSH keys to up- load, prompting to create and upload a new key if one is not found. This can be skipped with --skip-ssh-key flag. For more information on OAuth scopes, see <https://docs.github.com/en/developers/apps/build- ing-oauth-apps/scopes-for-oauth-apps/>. OPTIONS -c, --clipboard Copy one-time OAuth device code to clipboard -p, --git-protocol <string> The protocol to use for git operations on this host: {ssh|https} -h, --hostname <string> The hostname of the GitHub instance to authenticate with --insecure-storage Save authentication credentials in plain text instead of credential store -s, --scopes <strings> Additional authentication scopes to request --skip-ssh-key Skip generate/upload SSH key prompt -w, --web Open a browser to authenticate --with-token Read token from standard input EXIT CODES 0: Successful execution 1: Error 2: Command canceled 4: Authentication required NOTE: Specific commands may have additional exit codes. Refer to the com- mand's help for more information. EXAMPLE # Start interactive setup $ gh auth login # Open a browser to authenticate and copy one-time OAuth code to clipboard $ gh auth login --web --clipboard # Authenticate against github.com by reading the token from a file $ gh auth login --with-token < mytoken.txt # Authenticate with specific host $ gh auth login --hostname enterprise.internal SEE ALSO gh-auth(1) Aug 2026 GH-AUTH-LOGIN(1)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | EXIT CODES | EXAMPLE | SEE ALSO
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