Table of Contents
- Connecting VS Code to Codebox Go
- Which kind of account do you have?
- First: sign in on the web
- Team members: one script
- External collaborators: clone your repository
- Passwords and tokens
- Things that commonly go wrong
- I can only see a few repositories
- The clone hangs, or keeps asking for a username
- "Your connection is not private" / certificate error
- It worked at home but not elsewhere
- Strange failures inside OneDrive
- Sign-in is rejected
- Getting help
Connecting VS Code to Codebox Go
Codebox Go is our self-hosted Git service. This guide gets you from a fresh machine to working in VS Code, and explains the handful of things that commonly go wrong.
The address is the same wherever you are:
https://git.hoppe.mywire.org
Use it from home, from a laptop elsewhere, from anything. If you were given a different address at some point, prefer this one — a link that only works on one network will strand you the moment you move.
Which kind of account do you have?
| Team member | External collaborator | |
|---|---|---|
| Sign-in | Your organisation account | An account created for you, with its own password |
| Set-up | One script does everything | Clone the specific repository you were given |
| You will see | The repositories your team has | Usually one repository |
Both sign in at the same address and both work the same way in VS Code. The difference is only how many repositories you can see.
First: sign in on the web
Go to the address above and sign in before touching VS Code. It confirms your account works and tells you immediately which repositories you have.
If sign-in fails, skip to Sign-in is rejected.
Team members: one script
Members can clone the workspace repository, which contains a bootstrap
script. It asks the server which repositories your account can see, clones
exactly those, and writes a VS Code workspace file containing them.
git clone https://git.hoppe.mywire.org/Hoppe.home/workspace.git
cd workspace
.\bootstrap.ps1
Then open the workspace file it prints at the end.
Inside VS Code you can instead press Ctrl+Shift+P, choose Tasks: Run Task, then Set up my Codebox Go workspace.
Re-run it whenever you like. It updates what you already have, adds anything newly shared with you, and rewrites the workspace file — so it doubles as a way to check you have not missed a repository.
There is no fixed list of repositories in the script, deliberately. It asks the server every time, so it can never offer you something you are not allowed to clone, and it cannot go stale.
External collaborators: clone your repository
You will normally have exactly one. Clone it directly:
git clone https://git.hoppe.mywire.org/<owner>/<repository>.git
Or in VS Code: Ctrl+Shift+P → Git: Clone → paste the URL.
When prompted, enter your username and password. Choose a folder that is not inside OneDrive or another syncing folder — see below for why.
Passwords and tokens
You can sign in with your password. You can also create a personal access token under Settings → Applications, and use it anywhere a password is asked for.
A token is the better choice on a laptop, a shared machine, or anything you carry around: it can be revoked on its own without changing your password, and you can issue a separate one per device.
Never commit a token to a repository, and never paste one into an issue or a chat message. If one leaks, revoke it in the same place you created it.
Things that commonly go wrong
I can only see a few repositories
This is almost always your access, not a fault. Repositories you have not been given are hidden rather than shown as forbidden, so a short list looks identical to a broken sign-in.
Ask for the repository you need, naming it. Nothing on your machine will fix it.
The clone hangs, or keeps asking for a username
If a prompt appears for an address different from the one you cloned from, that is the cause. Credentials are stored per address, so a request to a second address finds nothing saved and waits for input — which looks like a stalled download rather than a question.
Cancel, and clone using the address at the top of this page. If your system has stored something unhelpful, clear the saved entry (on Windows: Credential Manager → Windows Credentials) and let it ask again.
"Your connection is not private" / certificate error
Check your device's date and time first. A certificate is only valid between two dates, so a clock that is wrong by days makes a perfectly good certificate look invalid. This is by far the most common cause.
On Windows: Settings → Time & language → Date & time, turn on Set time automatically, then Sync now. If the clock keeps resetting after every restart, the machine's internal battery is likely flat.
A wrong clock also breaks sign-ins on many other services, so fixing it tends to clear up more than this one error.
It worked at home but not elsewhere
Your repository is pointing at an address that only exists on the home network. Point it at the public one:
git remote set-url origin https://git.hoppe.mywire.org/<owner>/<repository>.git
Check what it is currently using with git remote -v.
Strange failures inside OneDrive
Do not clone into OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive or iCloud Drive. Sync copies files while Git is still writing them, which produces stalls, lock errors and apparent corruption that look like network problems.
Use a plain local folder such as C:\Users\<you>\Code. The bootstrap script
refuses a syncing folder for this reason.
Sign-in is rejected
- Check whether you are entering the right kind of credential. Team members use their organisation account; external collaborators use the password set up for them here.
- If you use a token, confirm it has not been revoked, and that you pasted it whole.
- Repeated failures may temporarily rate-limit you. Wait a few minutes rather than retrying rapidly.
Getting help
Ask the person who gave you access. When you do, include:
- what you ran or clicked,
- the exact error text,
- and the address it mentions.
That last one resolves most cases immediately, because the wrong address is the single most common cause.
