Why do I have to keep unlocking my SSH key?

Found it elsewhere. I had to do this:

ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa

For anyone who get's a Could not open a connection to your authentication agent when executing ssh-add will need to start ssh-agent first.

    eval `ssh-agent`
    ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa

I am sure you have fixed this by now, but you might be interested to see a response to a question I recently asked on AskUbuntu.

https://askubuntu.com/questions/36255/why-wont-ssh-agent-save-my-unencrypted-key-for-later-use/36302#36302