GIST(1)                           Gist manual                          GIST(1)

NAME
       gist - upload code to https://gist.github.com

Synopsis
       The gist gem provides a gist command that you can use from your
       terminal to upload content to https://gist.github.com/.

Installation
       o   If you have ruby installed:

           gem install gist

       o   If you're using Bundler:

           source :rubygems gem 'gist'

       o   For OS X, gist lives in Homebrew

           brew install gist

       o   For FreeBSD, gist lives in ports

           pkg install gist

       o   For Ubuntu/Debian

           apt install gist




       Note: Debian renames the binary to gist-paste to avoid a name conflict.

Command
       o   To upload the contents of a.rb just:

           gist a.rb

       o   Upload multiple files:

           gist a b c gist *.rb

       o   By default it reads from STDIN, and you can set a filename with -f.

           gist -f test.rb <a.rb

       o   Alternatively, you can just paste from the clipboard:

           gist -P

       o   Use -p to make the gist private:

           gist -p a.rb

       o   Use -d to add a description:

           gist -d "Random rbx bug" a.rb

       o   You can update existing gists with -u:

           gist -u GIST_ID FILE_NAME gist -u 42f2c239d2eb57299408 test.txt

       o   If you'd like to copy the resulting URL to your clipboard, use -c.

           gist -c <a.rb

       o   If you'd like to copy the resulting embeddable URL to your
           clipboard, use -e.

           gist -e <a.rb

       o   And you can just ask gist to open a browser window directly with
           -o.

           gist -o <a.rb

       o   To list (public gists or all gists for authed user) gists for user

           gist -l : all gists for authed user gist -l defunkt : list
           defunkt's public gists




       To read a gist and print it to STDOUT


           gist -r GIST_ID
           gist -r 374130




       o   See gist --help for more detail.




Login
       Before you use gist for the first time you will need to log in. There
       are two supported login flows:

       1.  The Github device-code Oauth flow. This is the default for
           authenticating to github.com, and can be enabled for Github
           Enterprise by creating an Oauth app, and exporting the environment
           variable GIST_CLIENT_ID with the client id of the Oauth app.

       2.  The (deprecated) username and password token exchange flow. This is
           the default for GitHub Enterprise, and can be used to log into
           github.com by exporting the environment variable
           GIST_USE_USERNAME_AND_PASSWORD.




   The device-code flow
       This flow allows you to obtain a token by logging into GitHub in the
       browser and typing a verification code. This is the preferred
       mechanism.


           gist --login
           Requesting login parameters...
           Please sign in at https://github.com/login/device
             and enter code: XXXX-XXXX
           Success! https://github.com/settings/connections/applications/4f7ec0d4eab38e74384e




       The returned access_token is stored in ~/.gist and used for all future
       gisting. If you need to you can revoke access from
       https://github.com/settings/connections/applications/4f7ec0d4eab38e74384e.

   The username-password flow
       This flow asks for your GitHub username and password (and 2FA code),
       and exchanges them for a token with the "gist" permission (your
       username and password are not stored). This mechanism is deprecated by
       GitHub, but may still work with GitHub Enterprise.


           gist --login
           Obtaining OAuth2 access_token from GitHub.
           GitHub username: ConradIrwin
           GitHub password:
           2-factor auth code:
           Success! https://github.com/settings/tokens




       This token is stored in ~/.gist and used for all future gisting. If you
       need to you can revoke it from https://github.com/settings/tokens, or
       just delete the file.

   Password-less login
       If you have a complicated authorization requirement you can manually
       create a token file by pasting a GitHub token with gist scope (and
       maybe the user:email for GitHub Enterprise) into a file called ~/.gist.
       You can create one from https://github.com/settings/tokens

       This file should contain only the token (~40 hex characters), and to
       make it easier to edit, can optionally have a final newline (\n or
       \r\n).

       For example, one way to create this file would be to run:


           (umask 0077 && echo MY_SECRET_TOKEN > ~/.gist)




       The umask ensures that the file is only accessible from your user
       account.

   GitHub Enterprise
       If you'd like gist to use your locally installed GitHub Enterprise
       https://enterprise.github.com/, you need to export the GITHUB_URL
       environment variable (usually done in your ~/.bashrc).


           export GITHUB_URL=http://github.internal.example.com/




       Once you've done this and restarted your terminal (or run source
       ~/.bashrc), gist will automatically use GitHub Enterprise instead of
       the public github.com

       Your token for GitHub Enterprise will be stored in
       .gist.<protocol>.<server.name>[.<port>] (e.g.
       ~/.gist.http.github.internal.example.com for the GITHUB_URL example
       above) instead of ~/.gist.

       If you have multiple servers or use Enterprise and public GitHub often,
       you can work around this by creating scripts that set the env var and
       then run gist. Keep in mind that to use the public GitHub you must
       unset the env var. Just setting it to the public URL will not work. Use
       unset GITHUB_URL

   Token file format
       If you cannot use passwords, as most Enterprise installations do, you
       can generate the token via the web interface and then simply save the
       string in the correct file. Avoid line breaks or you might see:


           $ gist -l
           Error: Bad credentials




       You can also use Gist as a library from inside your ruby code:


       If you need more advanced features you can also pass:

       o   :access_token to authenticate using OAuth2 (default is
           `File.read("~/.gist")).

       o   :filename to change the syntax highlighting (default is a.rb).

       o   :public if you want your gist to have a guessable url.

       o   :description to add a description to your gist.

       o   :update to update an existing gist (can be a URL or an id).

       o   :copy to copy the resulting URL to the clipboard (default is
           false).

       o   :open to open the resulting URL in a browser (default is false).




       NOTE: The access_token must have the gist scope and may also require
       the user:email scope.

       o   If you want to upload multiple files in the same gist, you can:

           Gist.multi_gist("a.rb" => "Foo.bar", "a.py" => "Foo.bar")

       o   If you'd rather use gist's builtin access_token, then you can force
           the user to obtain one by calling:

           Gist.login!

       o   This will take them through the process of obtaining an OAuth2
           token, and storing it in ~/.gist, where it can later be read by
           Gist.gist




Configuration
       o   If you'd like -o or -c to be the default when you use the gist
           executable, add an alias to your ~/.bashrc (or equivalent). For
           example:

           alias gist='gist -c'

       o   If you'd prefer gist to open a different browser, then you can
           export the BROWSER environment variable:

           export BROWSER=google-chrome




       If clipboard or browser integration don't work on your platform, please
       file a bug or (more ideally) a pull request.

       If you need to use an HTTP proxy to access the internet, export the
       HTTP_PROXY or http_proxy environment variable and gist will use it.

Meta-fu
       Thanks to @defunkt and @indirect for writing and maintaining versions 1
       through 3. Thanks to @rking and @ConradIrwin for maintaining version 4.

       Licensed under the MIT license. Bug-reports, and pull requests are
       welcome.

                                   July 2026                           GIST(1)