<FIXED> Commit Not Sychronizing From VSCode

Hi,
Today I setup an account with GitLab with the intention of moving away from GitHub. Everything appears to have gone relatively smoothly and I am at the point of making my first commit from VSCode. My local repository is in a new directory and I run an ssh connection from it:

~/GitLab/SR Workspace/SR-espa1$ ssh -T git@gitlab.com
Welcome to GitLab, @freerossagora!

I make a small change to .gitignore, commit it and then attempt to synchronize. I get no error message, but in the corresponding gitlab repository the file is not updated, even after a refresh. There is some kind of further configuration I need to make, but I have been unable to find it in the docs.
What am I missing?

UPDATE: I have also created a gitlab+deploy-token and updated the remote “origin” url setting in the .git/config file with it (+username). VSCode doesn’t appear to be using this config file as I get git error:

> git push -u origin dev
remote: You are not allowed to upload code.
fatal: unable to access 'https://gitlab.com/<account name>/SR-espa1.git/': The requested URL returned error: 403

in the output (i.e. it isn’t using the updated url that includes username and token).
How do I configure VSCode to work from the .git/config file (assuming the change will make a difference)?
Thanks …
UPDATE: Now fixed with commands listed at end of:
https://forum.gitlab.com/t/fixed-unable-to-push-existing-branch-to-gitlab/72167?u=freeross