github - How do I get git to default to ssh and not https for new repositories

Question

These days when I create a new repository on GitHub on the setup page I get:

git remote add origin https://github.com/nikhilbhardwaj/abc.git
git push -u origin master

And whenever I have to push a commit I need to enter my GitHub username and password.

I can manually change that to

git@github.com:nikhilbhardwaj/abc.git

in the .git/config. I find this quite irritating - is there some way I can configure git to use SSH by default?

Answer 1

Set up a repository's origin branch to be SSH

The GitHub repository setup page is just a suggested list of commands (and GitHub now suggests using the HTTPS protocol). Unless you have administrative access to GitHub's site, I don't know of any way to change their suggested commands.

If you'd rather use the SSH protocol, simply add a remote branch like so (i.e. use this command in place of GitHub's suggested command). To modify an existing branch, see the next section.

$ git remote add origin git@github.com:nikhilbhardwaj/abc.git

---

Modify a pre-existing repository

As you already know, to switch a pre-existing repository to use SSH instead of HTTPS, you can change the remote url within your .git/config file.

[remote "origin"]
    fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
    -url = https://github.com/nikhilbhardwaj/abc.git
    +url = git@github.com:nikhilbhardwaj/abc.git

A shortcut is to use the set-url command:

$ git remote set-url origin git@github.com:nikhilbhardwaj/abc.git

---

More information about the SSH-HTTPS switch

• "Why is Git always asking for my password?" - GitHub help page.
• GitHub's switch to Smart HTTP - relevant StackOverflow question
• Credential Caching for Wrist-Friendly Git Usage - GitHub blog post about HTTPS, and how to avoid re-entering your password