diff --git a/_quarto.yml b/_quarto.yml
index 375314f..0088527 100644
--- a/_quarto.yml
+++ b/_quarto.yml
@@ -39,7 +39,6 @@ website:
       - href: content/culture.qmd
       - href: content/templates.qmd
       - href: content/training.qmd
-      - href: content/github_in_gov.qmd
       - href: content/landing_pages.qmd
       - href: content/documentation.qmd
       - href: content/licenses_gov.qmd
@@ -51,6 +50,8 @@ website:
       - section: content/github/index.qmd
         text: GitHub
         contents: 
+          - href: content/github_in_gov.qmd
+          - href: content/github/authenticating.qmd
           - content/github/best_practices.qmd
           - content/github/citation.qmd
           - content/github/actions.qmd
diff --git a/content/github/authenticating.qmd b/content/github/authenticating.qmd
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b71a5eb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/content/github/authenticating.qmd
@@ -0,0 +1,79 @@
+---
+title: Authenticating and Installing
+---
+
+## Installing Git
+
+Ask IT to install Git or GitHub Desktop. The later is more useful since you will get a good Git GUI and Git bundled together.
+
+## Git and RStudio
+
+In order for RStudio to use Git, it needs to know where your Git binary is installed. Instructions: <https://happygitwithr.com/rstudio-see-git>
+
+**Find Git binary**
+
+1. In RStudio, Tools > Terminal > New Terminal
+2. At the command line (in the new terminal), type `which git` if on a Mac and `where git` if in Windows.  
+3. Copy that path. It probably doesn't matter which one you use if there are multiple listed.
+
+**Tell RStudio the Git binary location**
+
+1. In RStudio, Tools > Global Options > Git/SVN
+2. There is a box at top that asks for the location of the Git binary.  
+3. Paste that path in.
+
+## Authenticating
+
+### GitHub Desktop
+
+No tokens needed. 
+
+1. Sign in under GitHub Desktop > Settings (or Options) > Account.
+2. Fill out your user info on GitHub Desktop > Settings (or Options) > Git.
+
+**Help! I signed up for GitHub Enterprise and GitHub Desktop will not authenticate!!** 
+Log out of GitHub Desktop under GitHub Desktop > Settings (or Options) > Account and log back in.
+
+### R users with RStudio
+
+Install the `usethis` and `credentials` packages. Then run this code.
+
+```
+## set your user name and email:
+usethis::use_git_config(user.name = "YourName", user.email = "your@mail.com")
+
+## create a personal access token for authentication:
+usethis::create_github_token() 
+```
+Copy the token. It is really long. Copy that into `YourPAT` in code below.
+```
+## set personal access token:
+credentials::set_github_pat("YourPAT")
+```
+
+Note for Linux users:
+`credentials::set_github_pat()` might store your PAT in a memory cache that expires after 15 minutes or 
+when the computer is rebooted. You thus may wish to do extend the cache timeout to match the PAT validity period:
+`usethis::use_git_config(helper="cache --timeout=2600000")`
+
+### With a Personal Access Token
+
+1. Go to <https://github.com/settings/tokens>
+2. Click generate new token. 
+3. For most uses, set the scope to "repo". Definitely do not click all the scopes!
+4. Copy the token that it generates.
+
+Open a terminal window and type
+```
+git config --global user.email "<your email>"
+git config --global user.name "<your name>"
+git config --global pull.rebase false
+```
+Next in the terminal window type one of these
+
+* Unix: `git config --global credential.helper store`
+* Max: `git config --global credential.helper osxkeychain`
+* Windows: `git config –global credential.helper manager-core`
+
+
+