aaif-goose/goose · error

Failed to authenticate using GitHub CLI.

Error message

Failed to authenticate using GitHub CLI.

What it means

goose ran interactive `gh auth login --git-protocol https` and the command executed but exited non-zero (crates/goose-cli/src/recipes/github_recipe.rs:125-128). Unlike [127], this is gh itself reporting that the login flow did not complete — the exit status is checked, and stderr from gh appears on the terminal around this error.

Source

Thrown at crates/goose-cli/src/recipes/github_recipe.rs:126

        .args(["auth", "status"])
        .set_no_window()
        .status()
        .map_err(|_| {
            anyhow::anyhow!("Failed to run `gh auth status`. Make sure you have `gh` installed.")
        })?;

    if status.success() {
        return Ok(());
    }
    println!("GitHub CLI is not authenticated. Launching `gh auth login`...");
    // Run `gh auth login` interactively
    let login_status = Command::new("gh")
        .args(["auth", "login", "--git-protocol", "https"])
        .status()
        .map_err(|_| anyhow::anyhow!("Failed to run `gh auth login`"))?;

    if !login_status.success() {
        Err(anyhow::anyhow!("Failed to authenticate using GitHub CLI."))
    } else {
        Ok(())
    }
}

fn temp_child_name(name: &str) -> String {
    let mut child = String::with_capacity(name.len());
    for ch in name.chars() {
        match ch {
            '/' | '\\' => child.push_str("__"),
            ch if ch.is_ascii_alphanumeric() || ch == '-' || ch == '_' || ch == '.' => {
                child.push(ch)
            }
            _ => child.push('_'),
        }
    }

    if child.is_empty() {

View on GitHub (pinned to 3810898a74)

Solutions

1. Run `gh auth login` manually in an interactive terminal and complete the flow once, then re-run the goose command
2. For non-interactive environments, authenticate via a token: set GH_TOKEN/GITHUB_TOKEN env var (or `gh auth login --with-token < tokenfile`) instead of the interactive flow
3. Ensure stdin is attached to a TTY when interactive login is expected; do not pipe input into goose

# Skip interactive login entirely in automation: provide a token
export GH_TOKEN="ghp_xxx"   # or GITHUB_TOKEN
gh auth status >/dev/null && echo "non-interactive auth OK"

When it happens

Trigger: User aborts the interactive prompt (Ctrl-C / EOF), the browser/device-code flow times out or fails, gh cannot prompt because stdin is not a TTY (piped input, some CI runners), or the chosen credentials are rejected.

Common situations: Running goose recipe commands in a non-interactive environment (CI, cron, scripts piping stdin), headless/SSH sessions without browser access where the device flow is interrupted, or an expired/revoked token causing gh to fail during login.

Understand the failure class

• Authentication and authorization failures — expired tokens, bad credentials, and missing scopes.

Related errors

• Failed to run `gh auth login`
• Failed to run `gh auth status`. Make sure you have `gh` inst
• Failed to clone repo: {}
• Failed to fetch repository contents using 'gh api' command (
• Failed to check directory contents: {}

AI-assisted analysis of aaif-goose/goose@3810898a74 (2026-08-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/b1bdf0a6820d3d5a. Report an issue: GitHub.