With awesome tools like GitNub and GitX adding GitHub integration, it would be great if you didn’t have to keep re-entering you username and API token.

So let’s settle on a standard, pioneered by GitNub:

$ git config --global github.user defunkt
$ git config --global github.token 6ef8395fecf207165f1a82178ae1b984

(Remember to replace @defunkt@ and @6ef8395fecf207165f1a82178ae1b984@ with your own username and token.)

Applications and scripts can easily access this information:

$ git config --global github.user
defunkt

You can also access ~/.gitconfig directly.

I just pushed out new versions of my gist script and the gist.el mode which use this method. Check the code for examples in Ruby and Emacs Lisp.

If you’re a developer, please adopt this method of storing GitHub data. Your users will thank you!