Why I Bother With This

I got tired of opening the browser every time I wanted to create a repo, check a PR, or trigger a workflow. GitHub CLI (gh) lets me do most of that from the terminal. Personal Access Tokens (PATs) are how Git authenticates when you push over HTTPS.

This post covers both — how I generate a PAT and how I use gh day to day.

Creating a Personal Access Token (PAT)

A PAT is basically a password for the command line.

  1. GitHub → profile photo → Settings
  2. Developer settings → Personal access tokens
  3. Generate new token
  4. Give it a name you’ll recognize later
  5. Set an expiration date
  6. Check repo (and any other scopes you need)
  7. Generate token — copy it now, you won’t see it again

Treat it like a password. Don’t commit it to a repo or paste it in chat.

Install GitHub CLI

Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S github-cli

Or via AUR:

yay -S github-cli

Ubuntu:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install gh

Check:

gh --version

Log In

gh auth login

Follow the prompts — I usually pick GitHub.com, HTTPS, and browser login.

Confirm:

gh auth status

Commands I Actually Use

Repos

gh repo create my-repo --public
gh repo clone username/repository
gh repo fork username/repository

Issues and PRs

gh issue list
gh issue create --title "Bug Report" --body "What went wrong"
gh pr list
gh pr merge 123 --squash --delete-branch

GitHub Actions

gh run list
gh workflow run workflow-name.yml
gh run view --log

Git + gh Together

I still use plain Git for commits and pushes. gh handles the GitHub-specific stuff.

git clone https://github.com/username/repository.git
cd repository
git add .
git commit -m "Initial commit"
git push origin main

Then open a PR without leaving the terminal:

gh pr create --title "New feature" --body "What this changes"

Bottom Line

PAT for auth, gh for GitHub tasks, Git for everything else. That’s my setup and it saves me a lot of clicking.