How I Access a GitHub Repository from My Local Machine Using a Personal Access Token (PAT)

Hi, I’m Raees Qazi, the Founder and CEO of Briller Technologies, and as a learner of DevOps and automation, I’m always exploring new ways to improve my workflows. Today, I want to share how I access GitHub repositories from my local machine using a Personal Access Token (PAT). If you’re new to this, don’t worry — I’ll explain everything in simple terms.

When working with GitHub, there are typically two ways to authenticate from your local machine: using a Personal Access Token (PAT) or SSH. In this blog, I’ll walk you through how I use a PAT to securely access and interact with my repositories.

What is a PAT?

A Personal Access Token (PAT) is like a password, but much more secure. You generate it in your GitHub account and use it to authenticate actions like pushing and pulling code. Instead of using your GitHub password each time, the token acts as a one-time password for Git operations.

Additionally, you can set an expiration date for your token (up to 30 days), which enhances security by limiting the time the token can be used.

Steps to Create a PAT:

To create and use a Personal Access Token (PAT), here’s the process I follow:

1. Log in to GitHub: First, I log into GitHub using my username and password.

2. Go to Settings: Once logged in, I click on my profile icon in the top-right corner and select Settings from the dropdown.

3. Access Developer Settings: On the left sidebar, I scroll down and click on Developer Settings.

4. Select Personal Access Tokens: Under Developer Settings, I click on Personal Access Tokens.

5. Generate New Token: I click Generate New Token. Here, I select the permissions I need for the token (like access to my repositories).

6. Save the Token: After generating the token, GitHub shows it once. I copy the token and make sure to save it in a safe place (like a password manager or a secure text file).

How to Use the Token:

Once I have the token, the next step is to set it up to authenticate my Git commands. Here’s how I do it:

1. Check the Remote URL: First, I need to make sure my local repository is linked to the correct GitHub repository. To check, I run the following command:

2. git remote -v

This command shows me the remote repository URL. If no remote is set, I use this command to add one:

git remote add origin <URL of your repo>

3. Set the Remote URL with the Token: Next, I update the remote URL to include my token for authentication. This is how I do it:

4. git remote set-url origin https://<your-token>@github.com/username/repository.git

Here, I replace <your-token> with the token I generated earlier, and <username/repository> with the actual repository path on GitHub.

5. Push and Pull Using the Token: Now that the remote URL is set up with the token, I can push my changes or pull updates from the repository. The token will automatically authenticate my actions.

Wrapping It Up

That’s it! With these steps, I can securely access my GitHub repositories using a Personal Access Token (PAT). It’s simple, secure, and makes it easy to interact with GitHub directly from my local machine. Whether you’re working on automation, DevOps, or just coding, using PAT is an effective way to keep your GitHub workflows smooth and secure.

I hope you found this blog helpful. If you’re new to DevOps or GitHub, give this a try and see how it works for you!

Here is the YouTube Link: https://youtube.com/@raeesq.?si=v_QK6Q2XXMf9mKep

Thanks for reading!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

📘 Understanding Prometheus in a Simple Way-Part 3 (For DevOps Beginners)

Image
 In our previous blogs, we have already covered: How to launch an EC2 instance (Link: https://medium.com/@raeesyaqubqazi/prometheus-and-grafana-project-part-1-by-raees-yaqoob-qazi-12eb5c431350 ) How to run our Notes App inside a Docker container (Link: https://medium.com/@raeesyaqubqazi/prometheus-and-grafana-project-part-1-by-raees-yaqoob-qazi-12eb5c431350 ) How to install cAdvisor to collect container-level metrics (Link: https://medium.com/@raeesyaqubqazi/monitoring-containers-with-cadvisor-part-2-of-my-previous-blog-series-cec2452b1ba5 ) Today, we will move one step ahead and learn Prometheus , which will collect the metrics generated by cAdvisor. 🔍 What Is Prometheus? Before understanding Prometheus, let’s talk about how data is stored in databases . ✔️ Relational Databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL) Data is stored in rows and columns  — like an Excel sheet. ✔️ Prometheus (TSDB — Time Series Database) Prometheus does NOT store data in tables.  It stores data in Time Series fo...
Read more

Grafana Setup & Dashboard Creation (Part-5)— Explained by Raees Yaqoob Qazi

Image
 Today, I’m going to talk about Grafana . Grafana is a powerful tool used to create dashboards and visualize data . As DevOps engineers, monitoring is very important, and Grafana makes it easy to understand system performance. Part-1:  https://brillertechnologies.blogspot.com/2025/11/prometheus-and-grafana-projectpart-1-by.html Part 2:  https://brillertechnologies.blogspot.com/2025/11/monitoring-containers-with-cadvisorpart.html Part 3:  https://brillertechnologies.blogspot.com/2025/12/understanding-prometheus-in-simple-way.html Part 4: https://brillertechnologies.blogspot.com/2025/12/understanding-prometheusmonitoring-made.html 1. Running Grafana Using Docker Compose First, I use Docker Compose to run Grafana. Open your docker-compose.yml file: vim docker-compose. yml Add the Grafana service: grafana: image: grafana/grafana-enterprise container_name: grafana restart: unless-stopped ports: - "3000:3000" Save and exit with:   :wq Then run: d...
Read more

My First Python Program: A Simple Calculator

Image
 Today, I am going to create a simple calculator using Python . This might be your first code ever , and honestly, this is also my first Python code . So don’t worry — we are learning together. Let’s start step by step. Step 1: Open VS Code First, open Visual Studio Code (VS Code) . Step 2: Create a Folder and a File Create a new folder (you can name it anything). Inside the folder, create a new file. In my case, I named the file first.py . 👉  .py is the file extension for Python , just like: .cpp for C++ .java for Java Step 3: Write the Python Code Now, write the following code in first.py : num1 = float ( input ( "Enter num 1: " ) ) # Taking first number from the user num2 = float ( input ( "Enter num 2: " ) ) # Taking second number from the user opr = input ( "Enter operator: " ) # User selects the operator (+, -, *) if opr = = "+" : # If operator is + output = num1 + num2 if opr = = "-" : # If operator is - ...
Read more