github-auth

Setup instructions for authenticating with GitHub, a service for hosting Git repositories and collaborating on code. They cover HTTPS tokens, SSH keys, and the GitHub command-line tool.

In plain words
What is it for?
They are for checking Git and GitHub CLI access, logging in when needed, and preparing GitHub work on a machine.
Why use it?
They help the agent choose an available login method so it can access repositories, pull requests, issues, and continuous-integration jobs.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/john-data-chen/hermes-agent-backup/github-auth
Any agent
npx skills add john-data-chen/hermes-agent-backup --skill github-auth
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/john-data-chen/hermes-agent-backup

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 18 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,967 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan F 4 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin 88% 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 $0.00018 $0.01967
Opus 5 $0.00009 $0.00983
Sonnet 5 $0.00004 $0.00393
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00197

Measured yesterday against content hash 6b49a0655a58, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade F, and why

github-auth scanned grade F with 4 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 yesterday.

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.

Enumerates the file system for secretshighData exfiltration

Searching home directories for .env, .ssh, .aws or credential files is reconnaissance for credential theft.

ls -la ~/.ssh/id_*.pub 2>/dev/null || echo "No SSH keys found"

Asks for rootmediumPrivilege escalation

A mod that escalates privileges can change anything on the machine, not only the project.

3. If `gh` is not installed → use "git-only" method below (no sudo needed)

Reaches for credential fileshighPrivilege escalation

SSH keys, cloud credentials, git-credentials, .npmrc, /etc/shadow: reading these is how a config file becomes a credential leak.

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "[email protected]" -f ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 -N ""

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

When `gh` is not available, you can still access the full GitHub API using `curl` with a personal access token. This is how the other GitHub skills implement their fallbacks.
Origin

This is a copy

88% identical to github-auth — 24 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 · 248 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 248 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 · 248 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. yesterday First seen · 248 lines · 18 tokens per session scan F 6b49a0655a58

Subscribe to this mod's changes

github-auth is a skill published in the GitHub repository john-data-chen/hermes-agent-backup (2 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 18 tokens to every session and 1,967 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it F with 4 findings (enumerates the file system for secrets, asks for root, reaches for credential files). It is 88% identical to github-auth, differing in 24 lines, and is treated as a copy.

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