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Sarah Lean 🏴󠁧󠁢
Sarah Lean 🏴󠁧󠁢

Posted on • Originally published at techielass.com

Install GitHub CLI on Windows

Let's discuss GitHub and the command line (CLI) tool that is available. I'll be covering how you can install the on your Windows machine using various different techniques.

What is GitHub CLI for?

The GitHub command line (CLI) tool can be used to carry out tasks relating to pull requests, issues and other GitHub tasks to your terminal. Meaning if you are working with code within your terminal and need to carry out a task with GitHub you don't have to leave that terminal session.

Each command starts with gh.

Install GitHub CLI with Winget

Windows Package Manager or winget is the built in package manager software on Windows 10 and Windows 11 machines. With winget you can install, upgrade and remove software through a command line. Winget is a Microsoft Open Source project.

You can use this command to install the GitHub CLI software:

winget install --id github.cli
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Install GitHub CLI with Chocolatey

Chocolatey is an open source package manager tool that can be used to help automate the installation, upgrade and removal of software on your Windows hardware.

If you already have Chocolately installed on your machine you can type in the following command to install GitHub CLI:

choco install gh
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Install GitHub CLI manually

You can install the software manually, "the old fashioned" way by downloading the file and then walking through the installation wizard.

You can find the latest release of the software here: https://github.com/cli/cli/releases/

You will find a bunch of file options to download, for Windows machines you'll need either the MSI, or ZIP versions depending on what your needs are.

*Go forth and install the GitHub CLI tool and have fun using it! *😊

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