env http_proxy=<internet Proxy> time gh --version
gh version 2.21.2 (2023-01-03)
https://github.com/cli/cli/releases/tag/v2.21.2
        0.05 real         0.04 user         0.01 sys

Looks like gh is trying to hit the internet even for --version

Looks like gh is trying to hit the internet even for --version

Yes, to check for newer versions of itself. It does that only once per 24 hours.

To disable this behavior, set export GH_NO_UPDATE_NOTIFIER=true in your environment. Note, however, that most other gh commands need the network to make API requests.

Closing since this is a problem with proxy networking.

@mislav Many GitHub Enterprise users work in an environment where access to the internet isn't a given; when tools need updating, they'd run the update mechanism specifically, e.g. apt-get update or similar. Normal (non-update) workflow would not be expected to reach out to the internet.

Could the decision to check for updates be gated on the remote url containing GitHub.com?

We'd want users to stay up to date even if they're using gh to exclusively communicate with non-GitHub.com hosts, so to pay attention to git remotes would be a no go in my view. However, I do understand that some people prefer to use their package manager (like apt-get) to check for updates instead of the software to "phone home" to try to check itself.

Right now, the only ways to prevent gh from "phoning home" is to either:

1. Set the environment GH_NO_UPDATE_NOTIFIER variable;
2. Compile gh from source.

Do you think that our official deb & RPM packaged-gh should never contact github.com server by default?