Force git to use SSH on GitHub

This forces GitHub to always use SSH, even for HTTPS URL's! This way, you can use https:// GitHub URL's and they will still use your SSH key.

git config --global url."[email protected]:".insteadOf "https://github.com/"

How it works

When you clone an HTTPS URL, it now gets rewritten as an SSH URL.

git clone https://github.com/rstacruz/vimfiles.git

This URL will get rewritten to access via SSH instead of HTTPS. It will instead be fetching from [email protected]_ via SSH.

The inverse: Use HTTPS instead of SSH

Alternatively, this forces GitHub to always use HTTPS. Great for macOS, where you can use git-credential-osxkeychain to store your GitHub token.

This will not rewrite [email protected]com:user/repo.git URL's, though, so I don't really recommend it! Besides, SSH keys are often easier to manage than API tokens.

git config --global url."https://github".insteadOf git://github

References

Hat tip to these people!

• https://gist.github.com/Kovrinic/ea5e7123ab5c97d451804ea222ecd78a
• https://gist.github.com/grawity/4392747