Configure GitHub for Rstudio

github.R

#### 1. Sign up at GitHub.com ################################################

## If you do not have a GitHub account, sign up here:
## https://github.com/join

# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

#### 2. Install git ##########################################################

## If you do not have git installed, please do so: 
## Windows ->  https://git-scm.com/download/win
## Mac     ->  https://git-scm.com/download/mac
## Linux   ->  https://git-scm.com/download/linux
##             or: $ sudo dnf install git-all

# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

### 3. Configure git with Rstudio ############################################

## set your user name and email:
usethis::use_git_config(user.name = "YourName", user.email = "[email protected]")

## create a personal access token for authentication:
usethis::create_github_token() 
## in case usethis version < 2.0.0: usethis::browse_github_token() (or even better: update usethis!)

## Note for Linux users:
## credentials::set_github_pat() (in line 34) might store your PAT in a memory cache that
## expires after 15 minutes or when the computer is rebooted. You thus may wish to do 
## extend the cache timeout to match the PAT validity period:
usethis::use_git_config(credential.helper="cache --timeout=2600000") #> cache timeout ~30 days

## set personal access token:
credentials::set_github_pat("YourPAT")

## or store it manually in '.Renviron':
usethis::edit_r_environ()
## store your personal access token in the file that opens in your editor with:
## GITHUB_PAT=xxxyyyzzz
## and make sure '.Renviron' ends with a newline

# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

#### 4. Restart R! ###########################################################

# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

#### 5. Verify settings ######################################################

usethis::git_sitrep()

## Your username and email should be stated correctly in the output. 
## Also, the report shoud cotain something like:
## 'Personal access token: '<found in env var>''

## If you are still having troubles, read the output carefully.
## It might be that the PAT is still not updated in your `.Renviron` file.
## Call `usethis::edit_r_environ()` to update that file manually.

# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

## THAT'S IT!

simply awesome.... thanks for this

Thank you so much!

this was very useful! Thanks!

many many thanks for your help, all works fine

This is great. Thank you! One minor suggestion. I wasn't familiar with the usethis::edit_r_environ() and kept trying to figure out how to enter the PAT in the parentheses. A comment like this might help people as clueless as me: #Run this line as is to start the editor

This was godsent
Thank you!

Thanks for the feedback @tomhanna-uh, I adjusted the comments on the usethis::edit_r_environ() bit, hope it is easier to understand now.

Awesome!

Thank you. This is an easy instruction!

You saved me having to write a poorer version for students this term. Can't thank you enough, Cedric!

Glad so many still find it helpful. And all the best with your course Robert!

Thanks a lot! Very happy to have found your advice on this, after 2 days trial-and-error... Yes, still very helpful for me as newbie :)

Very helpful, thanks!!

Glad I found this relatively early. These kinds of setups take hours sometimes. Thank you!

Under default settings on Linux, credentials::set_github_pat might store your PAT in a memory cache that expires after 15 minutes (or when the computer is rebooted), potentially leading to a great deal of frustration shortly later.

Linux users may wish to do either extend the cache timeout to match the PAT validity period

usethis::use_git_config(helper="cache --timeout=2600000") #cache timeout ~30 days

or configure one of the alternative methods that stores the PAT to disk (store or libsecret based solutions).

Thank you @grady , I#ve added a note to the gist!

@z3tt To be effective, the config change to the cache settings needs to occur before setting the PAT. (currently line 28)

Thanks @grady, I have updated the snippet aaccordingly.

Your note to reset the timeout in linux was especially helpful to me. However, when I executed:

usethis::use_git_config(helper="cache --timeout=86400")

I got:

Error in libgit2::git_config_set_string : 
  invalid config item name 'helper'

After executing gert::git_config(), it seems that the "helper" item name has been replaced with "credential.helper" and thus, for me, required:

usethis::use_git_config(credential.helper="cache --timeout=86400")

Thanks @gcpoole, I've updated the gist accordingly!