Follow these simple steps to set up GitHub authentication with a personal access token:

1. Open a command line window on your PC or Terminal on Mac

2. Set the current directory to your project root

   cd C:\Users\Giddy\source\repo\MySampleProject
   

3. Run the command to set remote access via a token

   git remote set-url origin https://username:token@github.com/username/repository.git
   

   Example:

   git remote set-url origin https://sampleuser:a7b19929***58fe65d1c@github.com/sampleuser/sampleproject.git
   

Update (March 2025)

GitHub now requires fine-grained personal access tokens (PATs) for most new workflows. Classic tokens still work if you already created them, but new tokens should be generated as fine-grained for better security.

Steps:

1. Generate a fine-grained token from your GitHub account:

   • Go to Settings → Developer settings → Personal access tokens → Fine-grained tokens.
   • Choose the repository or scope permissions you need.
   • Copy the token (you won’t be able to see it again).

2. In Visual Studio Code, the recommended way is to use the built-in GitHub authentication instead of embedding tokens in remotes:

   • Press F1 → "GitHub: Sign in" → follow the browser login flow → paste your token if prompted.
   • VS Code stores the token securely in the system keychain/credential manager.
   • Done.

3. If you still want to update your remote manually with the token (not recommended for long-term use):

   Use with AIgit remote set-url origin https://<USERNAME>@github.com/<USERNAME>/<REPOSITORY>.git
   

   Then push/pull, and when Git asks for a password, use your personal access token instead of your GitHub password.

   Note: Avoid putting the token directly in the remote URL (as in the older example). This is insecure and may expose your token in logs or config files.

I had the same issue because my network is behind a corporate firewall. Solved it by going to settings.json in VS Code and setting the proxy:

"http.proxy": "http://username:password@proxyhost:value"

From https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/111824

I have set it up in the vscode settings like so:

Then it asked for my personal access token. This is token can be created under "settings" -> "developer options" see: https://docs.github.com/en/enterprise-server@3.4/authentication/keeping-your-account-and-data-secure/creating-a-personal-access-token

2026 update (VSCode version 1.108.0):

If you have the GitHub Actions extensions installed go to Settings>Extensions>GitHub Actions and there you will see the checkbox "Use-enterprise" (obviously for this to work the enterprise URI has to be configured as shown above under relevant extension, it could have been renamed to "GHE.com & GitHub Enterprise Server Authentication"). For the changes to take effect, restar VSCode, next time you're asked to login you should be redirected to your enterprise login.

Check first if your remote URL is an HTTPS one (in command-line: once this is working there, you can switch back to VSCode):

cd /path/to/repo
git remote -v

If HTTPS, check what credential helper is used to cache your credentials. An old password might be cached, which is no longer valid, since now only PAT (Personnal Access Token) are allowed (following the Aug. 2021 policy change).

The follwoing works, even in a simple Windows CMD shell (no git bash required), as long as you have set the PATH:

# For Windows only
# Replace C:\Program Files\Git by the folder path where your Git is installed
set "GH=C:\Program Files\Git"  
set "PATH=%GH%\bin;%GH%\cmd;%GH%\usr\bin;%GH%\mingw64\bin;%GH%\mingw64\libexec\git-core;%PATH%"

Then, from any shell you want, since Git PATH is referenced:

git config --global credential.helper
xxx
printf "host=github.com\nprotocol=https" | git-credential-xxx get

(replace xxx by the output of git config --global credential.helper)

If this is the wrong "password" (ie., not your current token), erase the old one and store the new one.

printf "host=github.com\nprotocol=https" | git-credential-xxx erase
printf "host=github.com\nprotocol=https\nusername=MyGitHubUserAccount\npassword=yyy" | git-credential-xxx store

(Again, printf works in a Windows CMD as well, if the %PATH% is set as mentioned before)

Why does Visual Studio Code ask for a password? Because Visual Studio Code runs the auto-fetch feature, while the Git server doesn't have any information to authorize your identity. It happens when:

• Your Git repository has a https remote URL. Yes! This kind of remote will absolutely ask you every time. No exceptions here! (You can do a temporary trick to cache the authorization as the solution below, but this is not recommended.)
• Your Git repository has ssh remote URL, but you've not copied your ssh public key onto the Git server. Use ssh-keygen to generate your key and copy it to Git server. Done! This solution also helps you never retype password on terminal again. See a good instruction by @Fnatical here for the answer.

The updated part at the end of this answer doesn't really help you at all. (It actually makes you stagnant in your workflow.) It only stops things happening in Visual Studio Code and moves these happenings to the terminal.

Sorry if this bad answer has affected you for a long, long time.

The original answer (bad)

I found the solution on Visual Studio Code document:

Tip: You should set up a credential helper to avoid getting asked for credentials every time VS Code talks to your Git remotes. If you don't do this, you may want to consider Disabling Autofetch in the ... menu to reduce the number of prompts you get.

So, turn on the credential helper so that Git will save your password in memory for some time. By default, Git will cache your password for 15 minutes.

In Terminal, enter the following:

git config --global credential.helper cache
# Set Git to use the credential memory cache

To change the default password cache timeout, enter the following:

git config --global credential.helper 'cache --timeout=3600'
# Set the cache to timeout after 1 hour (setting is in seconds)

If the original answer doesn't work

I installed Visual Studio Code and configuration same above, but as @ddieppa said, It didn't work for me too. So I tried to find an option in User Setting, and I saw "git.autofetch" = true, now set it's false! Visual Studio Code is no longer required to enter password repeatedly again!

In menu File → Preferences → User Setting: Type these:

Place your settings in this file to overwrite the default settings:

{
  "git.autofetch": false
}

From Github VSCode Docs:

GitHub authentication for GitHub repositories

VS Code now has automatic GitHub authentication against GitHub repositories. You can now clone, pull, push to and from public and private repositories without configuring any credential manager in your system. Even Git commands invoked in the Integrated Terminal, for example git push, are now automatically authenticated against your GitHub account.

You can disable GitHub authentication with the git.githubAuthentication setting. You can also disable the terminal authentication integration with the git.terminalAuthentication setting.

UPDATE: Refer to the solution here