Configuring Git and GitHub access

Git is an open source change control system and GitHub is a popular code hosting platform that uses Git. Using Git with GitHub (or another hosting platform) is an excellent way to manage, share, and collaborate on the code, notebooks, and articles you create on the RSP Notebook Aspect. Like any other computer, you need to configure Git before you can begin developing software and collaborating on GitHub. This page will get you started.

Tip

New to Git and GitHub? See this Community forum topic for learning resources.

Setting up Git

At a minimum, configure your name and email. Open a terminal and run:

git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "your.email@example.com"

You can configure many more aspects of Git. The Rubin Developer Guide has some ideas to get you started. If you’ve already customized a ~/.gitconfig file on your local computer, you might want to copy that over to the ~/.gitconfig on the Notebook Aspect.

Storing GitHub credentials

You can cache your GitHub credentials in the Notebook Aspect so that you don’t have to type in your password each time you git push or work with a private repository. The gh auth login command from GitHub’s CLI is the recommended way to authenticate with GitHub.

First, open a terminal and run:

gh auth login

The first time you run this command, you’ll be asked to set your authentication preferences. The default answers are best for more users:

  • Where do you use GitHub? Select GitHub.com.

  • What is your preferred protocol for Git operations on this host? Select HTTPS.

  • Authenticate Git with your GitHub credentials? Select Yes.

  • How would you like to authenticate GitHub CLI? Select Login with a web browser.

    You will need to open the provided URL github.com in a new browser tab and enter the one-time code shown in the terminal.

With this setup complete, you can now use Git with GitHub repositories without needing to enter your username and password each time.

Clearing stored GitHub credentials

The gh auth login command stores your GitHub credentials on the Rubin Science Platform. You may wish to clear these credentials after you’re done using the Notebook Aspect. To do so, open a terminal and run:

gh auth logout

Store credentials for other Git hosts

If you’re using a Git host other than GitHub, you can store your credentials in a ~/.git-credentials file. Open a terminal and run:

git config --global credential.helper store

The next time Git asks for your credentials, it will store them in a ~/.git-credentials file. You can read more about the “store” credential helper in the Git documentation.

Alternatively, your Git host might allow SSH key access. See their documentation for details.

Git LFS for Rubin Observatory data repositories

The Notebook Aspect includes the Git LFS client.

Git LFS is preconfigured to allow anonymous access to Rubin Observatory’s Git LFS-backed data repositories (such as lsst/afwdata).