Have you ever wished you could initialize a remote repository from the command line? With Hub, it’s possible.

Hub is useful. Basically, it makes life easier by letting you interact with GitHub more from the command line.

Here are some examples of what it can do for you:

• Create a GitHub repo.
• Open different GitHub pages.
• Easier repo inits.

Install it

On a Mac, the easiest installation method is through Homebrew:

$ brew install --HEAD hub

Here’s a tutorial on how to install it on Linux.

Then alias hub with git. Pop open ~/.aliases and add the following to the bottom of the file:

alias git=hub

Test if it works:

$ git --version
# If it returns the following, it works
git version 2.0.0
hub version 2.2.0

Configure Hub

Hub will prompt for GitHub username & password the first time it needs to access the API and exchange it for an OAuth token, which it saves in ~/.config/hub.

Test it quickly by making a test repo:

$ mkdir git-test && cd git-test
$ touch README.md
$ git init

Now here’s the sauce:

$ git create

That command will prompt you for a password and a username. For whatever reason, it returned the following error for me:

Post ssh://api.github.com/user/repos: unsupported protocol scheme "ssh"

I changed protocol: to https in ~/.config/hub, and it worked. The config file should look something like this:

github.com:
- user: bob
    oauth_token: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
    protocol: https

Note: You should authenticate to GitHub with SSH keys. more info in this GitHub tutorial.

Note: There’s a catch when setting the protocol to HTTPS. GitHub then prompts you for a password every time you push or pull. That is the intended behavior. Either live with it or cache your credentials. See the GitHub tutorial how to do that.

Usage examples

If you’re unsure what the command does, you can safely test them with the --noop flag:

$ hub --noop create
git remote add -f origin https://github.com/hilja/git-test.git
echo created repository: hilja/git-test

It shows what the command would do without actually doing anything.

Initiating git in a new directory

Here’s an example of how initialization differs when using Hub.

Normal init without hub:

$ init
$ git remote -v
# The git remote command returns nothing cause there is no remote

Then with Hub:

$ git init -g
Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/bob/code/git-test/.git/
$ git remote -v
origin  https://github.com/hilja/git-test.git (fetch)
origin  https://github.com/hilja/git-test.git (push)

Hub sets those remotes automatically.

Creating repositories with Hub

The create syntax:

git create [NAME] [-p] [-d DESCRIPTION] [-h HOMEPAGE]

$ git create -d "This just a test repo, ignore"
origin  https://github.com/hilja/git-test.git (fetch)
origin  https://github.com/hilja/git-test.git (push)
created repository: hilja/git-test

That makes the remote repo.

Browse with Hub

The browse command will open the project’s GitHub page into your default browser:

$ git browse

Or open GitHub issues page:

$ git browse -- issues

Or the pull requests page:

$ git browse -- pull

Clone a repo with Hub

If it’s your own repo, only a repo name is needed:

$ git clone test-repo

Not your own:

$ git clone someone-else/test-repo

See the Hub website for more examples, or the man page for details.