020-github-auth.md

020 - GitHub Authentication

GitHub requires authentication for write operations, so we will be prompted for our user account name and a token for every push operation.

Step 1: Create the Token (PAT)

There are several types of GitHub tokens, but we will use the Personal access tokens (PAT, classic). Let's follow the GitHub documentation to create the token:

https://docs.github.com/en/authentication/keeping-your-account-and-data-secure/managing-your-personal-access-tokens#creating-a-personal-access-token-classic

Step 2: Use the Token in the Terminal

We will use the built-in features of Git to cache the GitHub PAT token → In-Memory Cache (Most Secure)

This temporarily stores your token in memory and never writes it to your hard drive. By default, it forgets the token after 15 minutes, but you can customize the timeout:

$ git config --global credential.helper 'cache --timeout=7200' # keep cached for 2 hours