About the GITHUB_TOKEN
secret
At the start of each workflow job, GitHub automatically creates a unique GITHUB_TOKEN
secret to use in your workflow. You can use the GITHUB_TOKEN
to authenticate in the workflow job.
When you enable GitHub Actions, GitHub installs a GitHub App on your repository. The GITHUB_TOKEN
secret is a GitHub App installation access token. You can use the installation access token to authenticate on behalf of the GitHub App installed on your repository. The token's permissions are limited to the repository that contains your workflow. For more information, see "Permissions for the GITHUB_TOKEN
."
Before each job begins, GitHub fetches an installation access token for the job. The GITHUB_TOKEN
expires when a job finishes or after a maximum of 24 hours.
The token is also available in the github.token
context. For more information, see "Accessing contextual information about workflow runs."
Using the GITHUB_TOKEN
in a workflow
You can use the GITHUB_TOKEN
by using the standard syntax for referencing secrets: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
. Examples of using the GITHUB_TOKEN
include passing the token as an input to an action, or using it to make an authenticated GitHub API request.
Important: An action can access the GITHUB_TOKEN
through the github.token
context even if the workflow does not explicitly pass the GITHUB_TOKEN
to the action. As a good security practice, you should always make sure that actions only have the minimum access they require by limiting the permissions granted to the GITHUB_TOKEN
. For more information, see "Permissions for the GITHUB_TOKEN
."
When you use the repository's GITHUB_TOKEN
to perform tasks, events triggered by the GITHUB_TOKEN
, with the exception of workflow_dispatch
and repository_dispatch
, will not create a new workflow run. This prevents you from accidentally creating recursive workflow runs. For example, if a workflow run pushes code using the repository's GITHUB_TOKEN
, a new workflow will not run even when the repository contains a workflow configured to run when push
events occur.
Commits pushed by a GitHub Actions workflow that uses the GITHUB_TOKEN
do not trigger a GitHub Pages build.
Example 1: passing the GITHUB_TOKEN
as an input
This example workflow uses the GitHub CLI, which requires the GITHUB_TOKEN
as the value for the GH_TOKEN
input parameter:
name: Open new issue on: workflow_dispatch jobs: open-issue: runs-on: ubuntu-latest permissions: contents: read issues: write steps: - run: | gh issue --repo ${{ github.repository }} \ create --title "Issue title" --body "Issue body" env: GH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
name: Open new issue
on: workflow_dispatch
jobs:
open-issue:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
permissions:
contents: read
issues: write
steps:
- run: |
gh issue --repo ${{ github.repository }} \
create --title "Issue title" --body "Issue body"
env:
GH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
Example 2: calling the REST API
You can use the GITHUB_TOKEN
to make authenticated API calls. This example workflow creates an issue using the GitHub REST API:
name: Create issue on commit
on: [ push ]
jobs:
create_issue:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
permissions:
issues: write
steps:
- name: Create issue using REST API
run: |
curl --request POST \
--url https://api.github.com/repos/${{ github.repository }}/issues \
--header 'authorization: Bearer ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}' \
--header 'content-type: application/json' \
--data '{
"title": "Automated issue for commit: ${{ github.sha }}",
"body": "This issue was automatically created by the GitHub Action workflow **${{ github.workflow }}**. \n\n The commit hash was: _${{ github.sha }}_."
}' \
--fail
Permissions for the GITHUB_TOKEN
For information about the API endpoints GitHub Apps can access with each permission, see "Permissions required for GitHub Apps."
The following table shows the permissions granted to the GITHUB_TOKEN
by default. People with admin permissions to an enterprise, organization, or repository, can set the default permissions to be either permissive or restricted. For information on how to set the default permissions for the GITHUB_TOKEN
for your enterprise, organization, or repository, see "Enforcing policies for GitHub Actions in your enterprise," "Disabling or limiting GitHub Actions for your organization," or "Managing GitHub Actions settings for a repository."
Scope | Default access (permissive) | Default access (restricted) | Maximum access for pull requests from public forked repositories |
---|---|---|---|
actions | read/write | none | read |
attestations | read/write | none | read |
checks | read/write | none | read |
contents | read/write | read | read |
deployments | read/write | none | read |
discussions | read/write | none | read |
id-token | none | none | none |
issues | read/write | none | read |
metadata | read | read | read |
packages | read/write | read | read |
pages | read/write | none | read |
pull-requests | read/write | none | read |
repository-projects | read/write | none | read |
security-events | read/write | none | read |
statuses | read/write | none | read |
Notes:
- When a workflow is triggered by the
pull_request_target
event, theGITHUB_TOKEN
is granted read/write repository permission, even when it is triggered from a public fork. For more information, see "Events that trigger workflows." - Private repositories can control whether pull requests from forks can run workflows, and can configure the permissions assigned to
GITHUB_TOKEN
. For more information, see "Managing GitHub Actions settings for a repository." - Workflow runs triggered by Dependabot pull requests run as if they are from a forked repository, and therefore use a read-only
GITHUB_TOKEN
. These workflow runs cannot access any secrets. For information about strategies to keep these workflows secure, see "Security hardening for GitHub Actions."
Modifying the permissions for the GITHUB_TOKEN
You can modify the permissions for the GITHUB_TOKEN
in individual workflow files. If the default permissions for the GITHUB_TOKEN
are restrictive, you may have to elevate the permissions to allow some actions and commands to run successfully. If the default permissions are permissive, you can edit the workflow file to remove some permissions from the GITHUB_TOKEN
. As a good security practice, you should grant the GITHUB_TOKEN
the least required access.
You can see the permissions that GITHUB_TOKEN
had for a specific job in the "Set up job" section of the workflow run log. For more information, see "Using workflow run logs."
You can use the permissions
key in your workflow file to modify permissions for the GITHUB_TOKEN
for an entire workflow or for individual jobs. This allows you to configure the minimum required permissions for a workflow or job. When the permissions
key is used, all unspecified permissions are set to no access, with the exception of the metadata
scope, which always gets read access.
You can use the permissions
key to add and remove read permissions for forked repositories, but typically you can't grant write access. The exception to this behavior is where an admin user has selected the Send write tokens to workflows from pull requests option in the GitHub Actions settings. For more information, see "Managing GitHub Actions settings for a repository."
The two workflow examples earlier in this article show the permissions
key being used at the job level, as it is best practice to limit the permissions' scope.
For full details of the permissions
key, see "Workflow syntax for GitHub Actions."
Note: Organization owners can prevent you from granting write access to the GITHUB_TOKEN
at the repository level. For more information, see "Disabling or limiting GitHub Actions for your organization."
How the permissions are calculated for a workflow job
The permissions for the GITHUB_TOKEN
are initially set to the default setting for the enterprise, organization, or repository. If the default is set to the restricted permissions at any of these levels then this will apply to the relevant repositories. For example, if you choose the restricted default at the organization level then all repositories in that organization will use the restricted permissions as the default. The permissions are then adjusted based on any configuration within the workflow file, first at the workflow level and then at the job level. Finally, if the workflow was triggered by a pull request from a forked repository, and the Send write tokens to workflows from pull requests setting is not selected, the permissions are adjusted to change any write permissions to read only.
Granting additional permissions
If you need a token that requires permissions that aren't available in the GITHUB_TOKEN
, you can create a GitHub App and generate an installation access token within your workflow. For more information, see "Making authenticated API requests with a GitHub App in a GitHub Actions workflow." Alternatively, you can create a personal access token, store it as a secret in your repository, and use the token in your workflow with the ${{ secrets.SECRET_NAME }}
syntax. For more information, see "Managing your personal access tokens" and "Using secrets in GitHub Actions."