How to link a GitHub account to your MDN profile

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All users who wish to contribute to MDN must add a GitHub login to their MDN account in order to edit. This article describes how to add GitHub authentication to your MDN profile.

Note: Support for Persona logins on MDN was disabled on November 1, 2016. The method for adding a Github account to your profile therefore no longer works. If you didn't add a GitHub login to your MDN account before we disabled Persona logins, please file an "Account Help" bug on Bugzilla. For further reading about the end of life of Persona, see: Persona shutdown guidelines.

Overview

Adding GitHub authentication to your account isn't hard to do. We'll go into it in detail in a moment, but first, here's a quick list of the steps involved:

Click the Sign in button to attempt to sign in to MDN.
If you've already added a GitHub login to your MDN account, the GitHub authentication process will take place and then you'll be logged in to MDN.
If you haven't added a GitHub login to your MDN account, you'll be asked to add one. See Setting up GitHub authentication below.

Detailed instructions

Here's a step-by-step guide with details on how to do everything you need to know to add GitHub authentication to your MDN account.

Sign in to your MDN account

At the top of any MDN page, mouse-over or tap the Sign in box, located in the top-right corner of your MDN window:
This will either immediately log you in if you're already logged in to GitHub and have connected your GitHub login to your MDN account, present you with the GitHub authentication dialog if you've connected your GitHub account to MDN but aren't presently logged in to GitHub, or take you to GitHub's "Authorize application" page to associate your GitHub login with your MDN account.

Setting up GitHub authentication

If you're not already logged in to GitHub, you'll be asked to do so at this point, with a "Sign in to GitHub" dialog appearing on the screen:

If you're not already signed in to GitHub, you'll be asked to do so:
If you have two-factor authentication enabled on your GitHub account, you'll be asked to enter your authentication code:
Now that you're signed in to your GitHub account, you'll be asked to authorize the link between GitHub and MDN (unless you already have this authorization on file for some reason). This page is shown below.

Click the green Authorize application button to grant permission for your MDN profile to access your GitHub account. If the GitHub account is successfully linked to your MDN profile, you'll see this message:
You will now be taken to MDN's "Create your MDN profile to continue page". Since you're updating an existing MDN profile, you should see at the top a yellow box that shows matching MDN accounts that use email addresses affiliated with your GitHub account, like this:
Click the "Recover my profile" next to the email address corresponding to the MDN account you wish to attach your GitHub login to. A recovery verification email will be sent to you. Click the link in that email and you'll be taken to a "Connect Account" page on MDN, which looks like this:
Click the "Connect with GitHub" button to complete the connection process; you'll be taken to your MDN profile page so you can confirm the information contained there. But your account is now all set and ready to use.
If you don't already have an MDN account, fill out the information at the bottom of the page to create one, which will be associated with your logged-in GitHub account automatically, and respond to the authentication email we send to you. Clicking the link in that email will take you to the Connect Account page as seen above; clicking the "Connect with GitHub" button will complete the process and take you to your account profile page.

Not only can you now use GitHub to sign in to MDN, but you're actually already signed in using your GitHub authentication! Be sure to update any password managers you may have installed, if necessary.

Troubleshooting