GitHub Integration

Deep dive on Vant’s GitHub integration.

Overview

Vant uses GitHub as the brain storage and sync backend. Each brain file is a commit.

Required Setup

Set up GitHub for brain storage.

1. Create Repository

Create a new GitHub repository:

# Via GitHub CLI
gh repo create vant-brain --private

# Or via web: https://github.com/new

2. Generate Token

1. Go to: https://github.com/settings/tokens
2. Click “Generate new token (classic)”
3. Select scopes:
   • repo (full control) ✓
4. Copy token

3. Configure

Set environment variables:

export GITHUB_TOKEN=ghp_xxxxxxxxxxxx
export GITHUB_REPO=your-username/vant-brain

Token Scopes

Minimum required: repo for private brain storage.

Rate Limits

Understand rate limits and quotas.

Understanding Limits

Managing Limits

View and wait for rate limits.

Check current limit:

# Check current limit
vant rate

# Wait until reset
vant rate reset

Best Practices

Sync Strategies

Optimize GitHub sync strategy.

Full Sync

Push and pull all changes.

vant sync  # Pull + push

Pull Only

Pull changes without pushing.

vant sync --pull  # Get latest

Push Only

Push changes without pulling.

vant sync --push  # Push local changes

Best Practices

Recommended approaches.

Manual Sync

Always sync manually when ready:

vant sync --push  # Push local changes

⚠️ Don’t use cron or auto-sync with GitHub.com - GitHub.com Terms of Service prohibit automated polling. Self-hosted GitLab/Gitea is fine.

Branching Strategy

Manage Git branches for brain versions.

Default Branch

Main production branch.

main - Production brain

Experiment Branches

Try changes safely.

main
├── agent-1-experiment/
├── personality-test/
└── feature-xyz/

Workflow

Recommended workflow.

# Create experiment branch
git checkout -b experiment-feature

# Work on branch
# ... make changes ...

# Push branch
git push origin experiment-feature

# Create PR on GitHub for review
# Merge to main when ready

See: Multi-Agent

Troubleshooting

Security

See also: CLI Reference, Troubleshooting