GitHub Introduces SSH Key Management for Beginners

figure — welcome back to GitHub for Beginners. This is the final episode of the season, and we’ve covered a lot so far.

Make sure to check out our other episodes to see all the various topics we’ve discussed. Today, we’re going to spend some time answering some questions that people often have, especially when they’re first getting started. So without further ado, let’s jump right in. As always, if you prefer to watch the video or want to reference it, we have all of our GitHub for Beginners episodes available on YouTube. What is SSH and how do I add my SSH key to GitHub? An SSH key is a secure shell key. It’s a pair of files on your computer that has two parts: a private key and a public key. The private key stays on your computer and should never be shared. The public key is what you share with platforms like GitHub. When you store your public key on GitHub, git uses your private key to confirm your identity when you push and pull code. In order for you to be authenticated, your public key on GitHub needs to match the private key on your computer. So how do you do this? Let’s create a key pair and add your public key to GitHub now. (And remember, if you prefer a video walkthrough, that is available.) Open up a terminal and enter the following command. Remember to replace the email placeholder with your email address you use to log into GitHub.