hub

Clone a repository using its slug (owners can omit the username)

$ hub clone [username]/[repo_name]

$ hub fork

$ hub push [remote_name] && hub pull-request

$ hub pull-request --no-edit

$ hub pr checkout [pr_number]

$ hub create

$ hub sync

hub [OPTIONS] [ARGS...]
hub [OPTIONS] [ARGS...]

hub typically acts as a proxy for git. You can often use it as a direct replacement for git (e.g., hub push instead of git push) where it transparently adds its enhancements. It also introduces its own specific subcommands like hub pull-request, hub fork, or hub browse.

--version
    Show hub's version and exit.

--help
    Show hub's help message or a subcommand's help.

[GIT_COMMAND]
    Any standard Git command (e.g., clone, remote, pull) that hub intercepts to provide GitHub-specific enhancements, such as automatic URL resolution.

[HUB_COMMAND]
    A specific command provided by hub itself (e.g., pull-request, fork, browse, compare) to interact directly with the GitHub API or simplify GitHub-centric workflows.

hub is a command-line wrapper for Git that makes it significantly easier to interact with GitHub directly from your terminal. Instead of manually constructing complex Git commands with full GitHub URLs, hub simplifies common tasks by providing intelligent shortcuts and GitHub-specific commands. For instance, you can often use hub clone user/repo instead of git clone https://github.com/user/repo.git. It introduces powerful new commands like hub pull-request to create a pull request directly from your current branch, hub fork to fork a repository, or hub browse to open the repository in your web browser. hub aims to extend Git's core capabilities, streamlining your development workflow by deeply integrating with GitHub's functionalities and reducing manual URL construction, making the command-line experience with GitHub intuitive and efficient.

hub requires a GitHub API token for many of its interactive operations that modify GitHub (e.g., creating pull requests, forking). While still functional, hub has largely been superseded by GitHub's official gh CLI tool, which offers a more comprehensive and actively developed set of features for interacting with GitHub beyond just Git enhancements. Users might find gh to be a more modern and robust option for most GitHub command-line interactions today.

hub functions by intercepting calls that would normally go to the git command. When you execute hub , hub first checks if is one of its own built-in commands (like pull-request). If it's not a hub-specific command, it then attempts to pass the command directly to the underlying git binary, often injecting additional arguments or environment variables to enable GitHub-specific behaviors (e.g., automatically resolving repository URLs from shorthand notations). This intelligent interception allows users to configure an alias (e.g., alias git=hub in their shell) to seamlessly use hub's enhanced capabilities for all their Git commands without changing their habits.

hub was created by Mislav Marohnić and quickly became a highly popular and indispensable command-line interface for GitHub users. Its development aimed to bridge the usability gap between local Git operations and remote GitHub workflows, making common tasks like creating pull requests, forking repositories, and navigating projects on GitHub significantly simpler directly from the terminal. For many years, it served as the unofficial standard for GitHub command-line interaction. Although still functional, its active development has considerably slowed since the introduction of the official GitHub CLI (gh) by GitHub, which now fulfills the primary role for GitHub command-line tooling.

git(1), gh(1)