Install Git and Github in VSCode (Visual Studio Code) (2024)

The first step to being able to use Github with VSCode is to set-up Git on your computer and enable in it VSCode. This post will show you easy steps to set-up Git and Github in VisualStudio Code.

1. Understand what are Git, Github and VSCode
2. Install Git on Your Computer
3. Enable Git in VS Code
4. Create Your Github Account
5. Configure Your Login

If you haven’t already install and set-up VSCode.

Understand the Basics

Visual Studio Code (VSCode) is a code editor to develop, run and debug code.

Git is the tool that lets you create a local repository (on your PC) and manage versions of your files.

Github is an online service that will host your Git repositories (in the cloud).

Easy Install Git in Visual Studio Code

• Step 1: Download and install visual studio code from the visualstudio.com.
• Step 2: Install Git on Your Computer
• Step 3: Enable Git in VS Code
• Step 4: Create Your Github Account and Sign-in
• Step 5: Configure Your Login in Git
• Step 6: Verify that Git is Linked to your Github

1. Download and install Visual Studio Code

Go visualstudio.com, click on download and choose the right version for your operating system.

2. Install Git on Your Computer

In the official documentation on Visualstudio, it says that you need to install Git before you can access from VSCode.

To see if Git is already installed, you can go in the command line (on Windows) , or in the terminal (on Mac) and type this command.

$ git --versiongit version 2.20.1.windows.1

If it is not installed however, just go to Git-SCM and download the executable file for your machine.

3. Enable Git in VS Code

To enable Git in VS Code on Mac and Windows:

• Go to File > Preferences
• Go to Settings
• Type Git: Enabled in the search bar
• Make sure that the box is ticked

4. Create or Sign-In Your Github Account

To create an account on Github, go togithub.comand follow the steps to create an account.

5. Configure Your Login in Git

To configure your Git Login, we will need to set your username and email address in Git.

To set-up your commit email address in Git, to do so, open the terminal and use the git config command.

Set username in Git.

git config --global user.name "yourusername"

Set an email address in Git.

git config --global user.email "email@youremail.com"

Add the email address to your GitHub account.

If you use two factors authentication (2FA) in your organisation, you will need to generate an access token. You can also read the official documentation to help you.

6. Verify that Git is Linked to your Github

When your details are configured in Git, you can use the following command in the Terminal to view the email and username that was set up:

$ git config --global --list

user.name=yourusernameuser.email=email@youremail.com

How to Connect to Github From VS Code when 2FA is Enabled

When 2-Factor authentication is enabled, you need to follow extra steps to be able to connect to arepositoryfrom your remote. First, you need to set-up a personal access token (PAT) in Github developer settings and then configure your PAT inVS Code. The following steps explainshow to connect VS Code to Github when 2FA is enabled.

Become a Git Master

Although very powerful, Git is very complex. I highly recommend that you follow Datacamp’s Git course to really become comfortable with Git commands and avoid painful mistakes.

• Introduction to Git

Next steps?

• Create your first project with VSCode and Github
• Clone a Github Repository on Windows
• Add a file to Github using Gitbash

Other Version Control with Git and Github Posts

Learn Git and Github (Complete Guide)

Get Started With Github

Basics of Version Control

Conclusion

That’s it VSCode is configured with Git.