github-auth

github-auth is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from davidtoby/agent-skills. It costs 18 tokens per session (1,935 once invoked), scanned A, a copy of github-auth, MIT.

A guide for setting up GitHub login using access tokens, SSH keys, or the GitHub command-line tool.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to check authentication and configure GitHub access before repository work.
Why use it?
It removes the setup work that can prevent an agent from accessing repositories, pull requests, issues, and continuous-integration jobs.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Which agent this was written for is unclear — built for hermes-agent. Also seen: built for hermes-agent.

Good fit Use it to check authentication and configure GitHub access before repository work.

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Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/davidtoby/agent-skills/github-auth
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add davidtoby/agent-skills --skill github-auth
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/davidtoby/agent-skills

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for github-auth

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/davidtoby/agent-skills/github-auth/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/davidtoby/agent-skills/github-auth)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/davidtoby/agent-skills/github-auth"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/davidtoby/agent-skills/github-auth/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for github-auth

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/davidtoby/agent-skills/github-auth"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/davidtoby/agent-skills/github-auth.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 18 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,935 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe. ✓ AI security review Sonnet 5 · 7 Sept 2026 📄 Read the review
Origin 86% copy Near-identical to another mod in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00018 $0.01935
Opus 5 $0.00009 $0.00967
Sonnet 5 $0.00004 $0.00387
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00194

Measured 6d ago against content hash 77179ef1dcdc, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-10, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

github-auth scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 6d ago.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 1 executable file (scripts/gh-env.sh), listed below but not scanned — reading those needs a real analyzer, not pattern matching.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

Origin

This is a copy

86% identical to github-auth — 23 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

skills/github/github-auth/SKILL.md · 247 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 247 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

GitHub Authentication Setup

This skill sets up authentication so the agent can work with GitHub repositories, PRs, issues, and CI. It covers two paths:

  • git (always available) — uses HTTPS personal access tokens or SSH keys
  • gh CLI (if installed) — richer GitHub API access with a simpler auth flow

Detection Flow

When a user asks you to work with GitHub, run this check first:

# Check what's available
git --version
gh --version 2>/dev/null || echo "gh not installed"

# Check if already authenticated
gh auth status 2>/dev/null || echo "gh not authenticated"
git config --global credential.helper 2>/dev/null || echo "no git credential helper"

Decision tree:

  1. If gh auth status shows authenticated → you're good, use gh for everything
  2. If gh is installed but not authenticated → use "gh auth" method below
  3. If gh is not installed → use "git-only" method below (no sudo needed)

Method 1: Git-Only Authentication (No gh, No sudo)

This works on any machine with git installed. No root access needed.

Option A: HTTPS with Personal Access Token (Recommended)

This is the most portable method — works everywhere, no SSH config needed.

Step 1: Create a personal access token

Tell the user to go to: https://github.com/settings/tokens

  • Click "Generate new token (classic)"
  • Give it a name like "hermes-agent"
  • Select scopes:
    • repo (full repository access — read, write, push, PRs)
    • workflow (trigger and manage GitHub Actions)
    • read:org (if working with organization repos)
  • Set expiration (90 days is a good default)
  • Copy the token — it won't be shown again

Step 2: Configure git to store the token

# Set up the credential helper to cache credentials
# "store" saves to ~/.git-credentials in plaintext (simple, persistent)
git config --global credential.helper store

# Now do a test operation that triggers auth — git will prompt for credentials
# Username: <their-github-username>
# Password: <paste the personal access token, NOT their GitHub password>
git ls-remote https://github.com/<their-username>/<any-repo>.git

Read the full file on GitHub · 247 lines

Files

What ships with it

1 file beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 6d ago First seen · 247 lines · 18 tokens per session scan F 77179ef1dcdc

Subscribe to this mod's changes

github-auth is a skill published in the GitHub repository davidtoby/agent-skills (10 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 18 tokens to every session and 1,935 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 86% identical to github-auth, differing in 23 lines, and is treated as a copy.

Related

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