How to add a GitHub personal access token to Visual Studio Code

Question

I received an email saying GitHub will require token authentication after August 13 2021. I want to ensure I don't have an interruption of service (push/pull) after this date. So I logged into GitHub and created a token for my single repository.

Now I want to use the token to push/pull my repository from GitHub, in Visual Studio Code, which uses Git and the command line, which I have installed on my Mac.

What do I do to add/replace the password from GitHub with the generated token I just created to push/pull from my repository? Can I do it from Visual Studio Code or does it get added from the terminal command line?

Answer 1

Follow these simple steps to set up GitHub authentication with a personal access token:

1. Open a command line window on your PC or Terminal on Mac

2. Set the current directory to your project root

   cd C:\Users\Giddy\source\repo\MySampleProject
   

3. Run the command to set remote access via a token

   git remote set-url origin https://username:[email protected]/username/repository.git
   

   Example:

   git remote set-url origin https://sampleuser:a7b19929***[email protected]/sampleuser/sampleproject.git
   

Answer 2

Tested on Visual Studio Code (Mac)

no need for an extra extension. I only trust official extensions, sorry. GitHub extension by KnisterPeter

1. Generate a personal access token from github.com
2. Make sure to save your access token (e.g., ghp_pVC*****)
3. Open your project with Visual Studio Code or navigate to your project in the terminal, cd ~/path/to/your/project
4. In the Visual Studio Code terminal, git remote set-url origin https://<personal_access_token>@github.com/<your_username or organization_name>/<repo_name>.git
5. Now you can try git push

Note:

When generating a personal access token, make sure to enable workflow:

Hint

You can type git remote -v to see your origin or upstream.

origin  https://github.com/<username>/<repo_name>.git (fetch)
origin  https://github.com/<username>/<repo_name>.git (push)
upstream        https://github.com/<username>/<repo_name>.git (fetch)
upstream        https://github.com/<username>/<repo_name>.git (push)

Also after setting git remote set-url origin https://<personal_access_token>@github.com/<your_username>/<repo_name>.git

Your git remote -v should be something like:

origin  https://<your_personal_access_token>@github.com/<username>/<repo_name>.git (fetch)
origin  https://<your_personal_access_token>@github.com/<username>/<repo_name>.git (push)

Answer 3

If you get a message like this using the GitHub extension by KnisterPeter:

To enable the Visual Studio Code GitHub Support, please set a Personal Access Token

1. Go to Settings → Developer Settings → Personal Access Token

   Or go directly to https://github.com/settings/tokens

2. Click Generate New Token

   

3. Go back to Visual Studio Code and open the Command Palette (Ctrl + Shift + P)

4. Type in GitHub: Set Personal Access Token

   

5. Paste in the value from your newly generated token

Answer 4

1. In Visual Studio Code, try to push or pull from the remote repository
2. Click the 'Signing into GitHub' message at the bottom of Visual Studio Code
3. Click 'Allow' in the prompt
4. Enter the token in the prompt that appears at the top of Visual Studio Code

To see the output related to GitHub authentication:

1. Open a terminal in Visual Studio Code
2. Click 'Output' at the top of the terminal panel
3. Click 'GitHub Authentication' from the drop down menu

At the time of writing, I'm on Visual Studio Code v1.56.0.

Answer 5

If you are not prompted for your username and password, your credentials may be cached on your computer. You can update your credentials in the Keychain to replace your old password with the token.

Updating credentials from the macOS Keychain