Is it possible to create a remote repo on GitHub f

Question

I created a new local Git repository:

~$ mkdir projectname
~$ cd projectname
~$ git init
~$ touch file1
~$ git add file1
~$ git commit -m 'first commit'

Is there any git command to create a new remote repo and push my commit to GitHub from here? I know it's no big deal to just fire up a browser and head over to Create a New Repository, but if there is a way to achieve this from the CLI I would be happy.

I read a vast amount of articles but none that I found mention how to create a remote repo from the CLI using git commands. Tim Lucas's nice article Setting up a new remote git repository is the closest I found, but GitHub does not provide shell access.

Answer 1

This can be done with three commands:

curl -u 'nyeates' https://api.github.com/user/repos -d '{"name":"projectname","description":"This project is a test"}'
git remote add origin [e-mail]:nyeates/projectname.git
git push origin master

(updated for v3 Github API)

Explanation of these commands...

Create github repo

    curl -u 'nyeates' https://api.github.com/user/repos -d '{"name":"projectname","description":"This project is a test"}'

• curl is a unix command (above works on mac too) that retrieves and interacts with URLs. It is commonly already installed.
• "-u" is a curl parameter that specifies the user name and password to use for server authentication.
  • If you just give the user name (as shown in example above) curl will prompt for a password.
  • If you do not want to have to type in the password, see githubs api documentation on Authentication
• "-d" is a curl parameter that allows you to send POST data with the request
  • You are sending POST data in githubs defined API format
• "name" is the only POST data required; I like to also include "description"
• I found that it was good to quote all POST data with single quotes ' '

Define where to push to

git remote add origin [e-mail]:nyeates/projectname.git

• add definition for location and existance of connected (remote) repo on github
• "origin" is a default name used by git for where the source came from
  • technically didnt come from github, but now the github repo will be the source of record
• "[e-mail]:nyeates" is a ssh connection that assumes you have already setup a trusted ssh keypair with github.

Push local repo to github

git push origin master

• push to the origin remote (github) from the master local branch

Answer 2

I wrote a nifty script for this called Gitter using the REST APIs for GitHub and BitBucket:

https://github.com/dderiso/gitter

BitBucket:

gitter -c -r b -l javascript -n node_app

GitHub:

gitter -c -r g -l javascript -n node_app

• -c = create new repo
• -r = repo provider (g = GitHub, b = BitBucket)
• -n = name the repo
• -l = (optional) set the language of the app in the repo

Answer 3

create a new repository on the command line

echo "# <RepositoryName>" >> README.md

git init

git add README.md

git commit -m "first commit"

git remote add origin https://github.com/**<gituserID>/<RepositoryName>**.git

git push -u origin master

---

push an existing repository from the command line

git remote add origin https://github.com/**<gituserID>/<RepositoryName>**.git

git push -u origin master

Answer 4

You can create a GitHub repo via the command line using the GitHub API. Check out the repository API. If you scroll down about a third of the way, you'll see a section entitled "Create" that explains how to create a repo via the API (right above that is a section that explains how to fork a repo with the API, too). Obviously you can't use git to do this, but you can do it via the command line with a tool like curl.

Outside of the API, there's no way to create a repo on GitHub via the command line. As you noted, GitHub doesn't allow shell access, etc., so aside from the GitHub API, the only way to create a repo is through GitHub's web interface.