After you’ve installed GitHub Desktop and authenticated with GitHub.com, you can still use a command line interface.

Installing GitHub Desktop will also install a shortcut icon called Git Shell.

If you right-click on the icon and select Properties, you’ll see the comment “Open your preferred shell with Git enabled.”

Let’s select your preferred shell.

Open GitHub Desktop, and in the upper right-hand corner, click the Gear icon and select Options.

Now select your preferred shell. For me it is Git Bash, because I’ve never taken the time to learn PowerShell (I know! It’s as embarrassing as when I was still using Ctrl+c Ctrl+v as my source control a few years back).

And now click Save at the bottom of the page.

And close GitHub Desktop.

Now when you double-click the Git Shell icon, you’ll see a happy Git Bash prompt waiting for you with your authentication to GitHub.com (and other stuff we’ll cover later!) handled for you!

If you preferred PowerShell, then you’ll see a happy PowerShell prompt waiting for you!

And that’s it! You can now go back to your command line interface workflows!