diff --git a/cmd/crawl.go b/cmd/crawl.go
index 6d61c34..fa087c6 100644
--- a/cmd/crawl.go
+++ b/cmd/crawl.go
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@ import (
 	"github.com/italia/publiccode-crawler/v4/crawler"
 	log "github.com/sirupsen/logrus"
 	"github.com/spf13/cobra"
+	"github.com/spf13/viper"
 )
 
 func init() {
@@ -22,6 +23,10 @@ var crawlCmd = &cobra.Command{
 				otherwise the passed YAML files are used.`,
 	Args: cobra.MinimumNArgs(0),
 	Run: func(_ *cobra.Command, args []string) {
+		if token := viper.GetString("GITHUB_TOKEN"); token == "" {
+			log.Fatal("Please set GITHUB_TOKEN, it's needed to use the GitHub API'")
+		}
+
 		c := crawler.NewCrawler(dryRun)
 
 		var publishers []common.Publisher
diff --git a/main.go b/main.go
index e438899..84c118f 100644
--- a/main.go
+++ b/main.go
@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@ func main() {
 	viper.SetDefault("ACTIVITY_DAYS", 60)
 	viper.SetDefault("API_BASEURL", "https://api.developers.italia.it/v1/")
 	viper.SetDefault("MAIN_PUBLISHER_ID", "")
+	viper.SetDefault("GITHUB_TOKEN", "")
 
 	if err := viper.ReadInConfig(); err != nil {
 		var notFoundError viper.ConfigFileNotFoundError