repositories

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Repository deploy keys are controlled by enterprise and organization policy [GA]

GitHub Enterprise Cloud enterprise and organization administrators can now configure policies to restrict the usage of deploy keys across all the repositories of their organizations, giving you more control and greater security over your deploy keys.

Deploy keys provide SSH access to a single repository and are often used by integrations with external servers to a repository without using a personal GitHub account. However, this makes it hard to track the lifecycle of deploy keys across your repositories, as they exist outside of a user context and have no timed expiration capability. Now with the ability to set deploy key policies, you can more easily track and manage your deploy keys across your repositories.

All new enterprises and organizations will have the deploy key policy disabled by default.

For compatibility reasons, the deploy key policy will be enabled by default for all existing enterprises and organizations. You may want to explicitly disable the setting after evaluating and replace your deploy key usage with more secure alternatives like GitHub Apps.

For more details, learn more about the new policy for managing deploy keys.

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Updates to repository enterprise policy, ruleset and custom properties

Recent improvements to enterprise repository policy, rulesets, and custom properties now ensure a more consistent, intuitive experience, making it easier for you to navigate and accomplish your tasks efficiently.

  • Enterprise repository policy page has been renamed to “Member privileges” to align the page title with the current URL path, API endpoints and the corresponding organization setting.

Screenshot of member privileges

  • Repository rulesets now support enterprise owners as a bypass actor, ensuring your most privileged roles across your enterprise can bypass rulesets.

Screenshot of ruleset bypass with enterprise owners

Screenshot of additional repository property section

We want to hear from you

Questions or suggestions? Join the conversation in the community discussion.

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New commit details page (public beta)

A new version of the commit details page is now available in public beta!

This new page, which is enabled by default, lets you quickly understand and navigate the changes in a commit with improvements to filtering, commenting, and keyboard navigation.

Screen shot of the new commit details page that shows the metadata about the commit, a file tree showing the 3 files changed by the commit, diff snippets for each of the changed files, and a floating comment

What’s new 🎉

Here are a few of the noteworthy changes:

  • Floating comments: Code comments float over the diff when selected. To select, click on the commenter’s avatar to the right of the line.
  • Comment counts: To help you identify files with comments, the number of comments for a file now appears in the file tree.
  • Keyboard navigation within diffs: You can now navigate around changed lines in the diff using the up and down keys on your keyboard. A new context menu also makes it easier to comment, copy, and select.
  • Quick view switching: Switching between unified and split views no longer reloads the page.
  • Filter by file extension: Easily filter changed files by file extension in the diff to see the content most relevant to you.
  • Filtered out diffs hidden: When filtering the file tree, diffs are filtered as well, allowing you to reduce distraction and see the files you care about most.

Next steps 📣

To give feedback, ask questions, or report a bug join us in the feedback discussion.

To opt out of the preview, go the Feature Preview dialog on your profile, select New Commit Details Page, and click Disable.

To learn more about viewing commits, see About commits.

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Push Rules are now generally available, and updates to custom properties

You can now restrict pushes into your private and internal repositories and their forks, with push rules – a new type of ruleset. Push rules enable you to limit updates to sensitive files like actions workflows, and help to enforce code hygiene by keeping unwanted objects out of your repositories.

In addition, organization owners can now allow repository property values to be set when repositories are created. This ensures appropriate rules are enforced from the moment of creation and improves discoverability of new repositories.

Push Rules

Organization and repository owners can now configure rules that govern what changes can be pushed to their repository, by attributes of the files changed – including their paths, extensions and sizes.

Screenshot showing the list of new push rules with options configured

Available push rules

  • Restrict file paths
    • This rule allows you to define files or file paths that cannot be pushed to. An example of when you might use this is if you wanted to limit changes to your Actions workflows in .github/workflows/**/*
  • Restrict file path length
    • You can limit the path length of folder and file names.
  • Restrict file extensions
    • You can keep binaries out of your repositories using this rule. By adding a list of extensions, you can exclude exe jar and more from entering the repository.
  • Restrict file size
    • Limit the size of files allowed to be pushed. Note: current GitHub limits are still enforced.

Push rules are available on GitHub Team plans for private repositories, and coverage extends to not just the repository, but also all forks of that repository. Additionally, GitHub Enterprise Cloud customers can set push rules on internal repositories and across organizations with custom repository properties. You can also access rule insights to see how push rules are applied across your repositories.

Additional details

  • Delegated bypass for push rules, currently in beta, allows your development teams to stay compliant with internal policies and keep a clean git history. Developers can easily request exceptions to push rules, that are reviewed and audited all within GitHub.
  • To ensure best performance push rules are designed to handle up to 1000 reference updates for branches and tags per push.

For more information, see the Push Rule documentation and to get started you can visit the ruleset-recipes repository to import an example push ruleset.

Custom properties

Organization owners can now allow their users to set custom properties during repository creation. Previously, this was only available to repository administrators or those with permissions to edit custom repository properties. By selecting Allow repository actors to set this property for your custom property, you can ensure repositories have properties attached from the start.

Screenshot of new repo being set up with a custom repository property

We want to hear from you

Questions or suggestions? Join the conversation in the community discussion.

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Retrieve the code security configuration currently applied to a repository via API

You can now retrieve the code security configuration applied to a specific repository via the repos endpoint in the REST API. Previously, you could only retrieve all the repositories associated with a configuration rather than the inverse.

Code security configurations help you manage and enforce the enablement of your security features like Dependabot, code scanning, and secret scanning.

To learn more about retrieving code security configurations with our repository REST API endpoint, check out our docs here.

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Enhanced Repo Insights Views

New Enhanced Repo Insights Views

We’re thrilled to introduce improvements to Repo Insights! With this update, you’ll find significant enhancements to two of our repository insights views—Contributors and Code Frequency. Both now utilize an SVG-based solution, offering improved focus navigation for precise, point-by-point interaction. You can also hide a series by interacting with the chart legend and view or download the data in both table format and as PNGs. Let’s dive into the details!

Contributors

  • Date Range Filter: While the click-and-drag date range selection was a handy feature, it was also a hidden feature. The new date range filter is always visible and fully navigable by keyboard, making it more accessible and easier to use.

  • Clear Date Range Display: The current date range is now explicitly listed under the heading, giving you a clear and immediate understanding of the data timeframe.

  • Responsive Contributor Cards: Previously locked to a two-column view, contributor cards are now more responsive on small screens, seamlessly wrapping to a single-column layout for a better viewing experience.

Code Frequency

  • Enhanced Axes Differentiation: The two different axes are now distinguished not just by color but also by line style, making it easier to interpret the data at a glance.

  • Detailed Tooltips: Data points are now navigable and display more details in a tooltip. Previously, you could only visually reference data against the axes. Now, you get more information directly from the chart itself.

Explore the new features and let us know what you think! Join the discussion within the GitHub Community.

To revert this update, click on your profile picture in the top right corner of the page, go to the feature preview menu, select “Enhanced Repo Insights Views” and click disable. If you choose to turn this feature off – please let us know why using the link listed above!

 

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Repository updates July 31st 2024

We’re excited to bring an updated repository list view experience and the ruleset merge queue rule to general availability, as well as an update to the status check and workflow rules.

Finding repositories in your organization is now easier

With the introduction of custom properties earlier this year we wanted to make it easier to find repositories across your organization. With the new organization repository view and advanced filtering you find repositories based on common parameters like visibility and language, but also custom properties, size, license and a host of additional values.

Screenshot of repository list view filtered by visibility, archived status and a custom property showing a list of 64 repositories.

Repository Rules updates

Repository ruleset merge queue rule is now generally available

In addition to being able to manage your merge queue via rules, you can now see all the pull requests that merged in the same group along with the checks needed for the queue with rule insights.

Screenshot of repository rule merge queue options with default configurations.

Learn more about merge queues in our documentation and repository rules REST API

Avoid required status checks and required workflows when creating branches

Applying status check and actions workflow rules to newly created branches has been a point of friction in rulesets. When creating a new branch will fail unless you add bypass actors or create an intermediate unprotected branch. To alleviate this friction there is a new option available prevent checks and workflows from running on new branches.

Screenshot of require status check rule with the new "Do not require status checks on creation" option enabled

Learn more about status check rules and required workflows rules in our documentation.

Join the discussion within GitHub Community.

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GitHub Private Mirrors App – Public Beta

Today, we’re releasing a beta version of an open source GitHub App that manages private mirrors of public upstream repositories. The Private Mirrors App (PMA) enables organizations with regulatory or policy code review requirements to conduct their reviews in private, before contributing changes upstream. The app manages the lifecycle and synchronization of these private mirrors and automatically configures rulesets to manage PRs made to the mirrors.

The main benefits of working on private mirrors through PMA are:

  • Branch protection rules can enforce PR reviews by people on particular teams to ensure proper signoffs
  • If commits include code/keys/docs that should not be made public, there’s the opportunity to remove them and squash merge without leaking history
  • Initial development can happen inside an Enterprise Managed Users (EMU) organization, whose users ordinarily can’t interact with public GitHub repos. Once the app syncs a change, the public fork and upstream PR use normal github.com identities.

If this is interesting to you, check out the Private Mirrors App repo. If you’ve got questions or feedback, feel free to file an issue in the repostitory or join the conversation in the GitHub Community Discussions.

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Repository updates June 12th 2024

We’re excited to introduce enhancements to custom properties as well as updates to the push rule public beta.

Custom properties updates!

New property types

  • Multi select allows a repo to have more than one value for a property defined. Now a repository can have a property that defines a compliance requirement with values for FedRamp and SOC2, for example.
  • True/False allows you to set whether a given property is true or false for a given repository.

repository properties with multi select

Target rulesets by repository visibility and more

In addition to targeting repositories with the custom properties you’ve created, we’ve now extended property targeting to include the ability to target by:
– Visibility: public, private, or internal
– Fork: true, false
– Language: select primary repository language.

System property targeting in a ruleset screenshot

Learn more in the custom properties documentation

What do you think? Start a discussion within GitHub Community.

Push rule delegated bypass public beta!

We are expanding on the push rule public beta with a new delegated bypass flow.

Previously to bypass push rules you had to be on the bypass list to push restricted content. Now with delegated bypass, contributors can propose bypassing a push rule and members of the bypass list can review those bypass requests to allow or deny the content.

Learn more about push rule delegated bypass in the repository rules documentation and join the push rule discussion in the GitHub Community.

Delegated bypass screenshot

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Sunset Notice – Tag Protections

Starting today, we will begin work towards the sunset of tag protections, with a full deprecation planned for August 30, 2024. See below for a full sunset timeline. You can migrate existing tag protections with the import to ruleset feature.

We launched repository rules last year to meet the needs of tag protection rules, while also scaling support to provide new functionalities like org-wide rules, granular restrictions for creating, reading, and updating events, and a more granular bypass model that does not require repository administrator permissions. As we such, we will sunset tag protections in favor of our ongoing investment in the repository rulesets platform.

You can import existing tag protection rules today with the existing migration feature. If no action is taken before the sunset date, GitHub will migrate all existing tag protections into a corresponding ruleset.

When are changes happening?

GitHub.com Timeline

  • May 30 : Repositories without tag protection rules will no longer be able to add new protection rules via the GitHub.com UI
  • July 24 through August 14 : A series of API brownouts will be run, see below for additional details on dates and times.
  • August 30, 2024: All tag protection rules will be migrated to a new tag ruleset. All REST and GraphQL API endpoints will be deprecated

GitHub.com API Timeline

  • May 30: API responses will include a deprecation notice
  • July 24: 1 hour API brownout
  • August 7: 8 hour API brownout
  • August 14: 24 hour API brownout
  • August 30: The tag protection rule API will begin responding with NULL data
  • The tag protection rules API will be deprecated in the next calendar version

GitHub Enterprise Server Timeline

  • Version 3.14: Tag protection rules will be marked for deprecation with an in-product banner and API responses will include a deprecation notice
  • Version 3.15: No changes will be made
  • Version 3.16: Tag protection rules will be migrated to a ruleset and the tag protection rule feature will no longer be available

Join the discussion within GitHub Community.

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[Public Beta] Repository collaborators for Enterprise Managed Users

Enterprise Managed Users can now be added directly to a repository in their enterprise as a collaborator, without becoming a member of the organization. These users function like outside collaborators, with a few differences:
1. Only user accounts from within the enterprise can be added to the repository. This means that users you want to collaborate with must still come from your linked identity provider (IDP).
2. EMU users can only be collaborators on repositories in their enterprise. EMU accounts cannot collaborate outside their enterprise.
3. Repo Collaborator invitations can only be sent by an EMU’s enterprise owner by default, while in non-EMU enterprises and organizations both enterprise and organization owners can manage outside collaborators.

Like outside collaborators – users do not have to SSO authorize their credentials in order to access repositories that they have been granted access to as a repository collaborators. This aligns to the current access model for internal repositories on GitHub.

You can try out repository collaborators by going to the repository policies section of your Enterprise settings and selecting which tiers of administrators are allowed to invite collaborators.

For more information about repository and outside collaborators, see “Roles in an organization“.

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Repository Updates April 30th, 2024

Repository Updates April 30th, 2024

  • Deploy keys are now supported as a bypass actor in repository rules, allowing additional granularity for your automations. Previously for deploy keys to bypass a ruleset the Repository Administrator role was required.

  • Webhooks and GitHub Actions will no longer be run for any push that includes over 5000 branches. Clients will now receive the following warning indicating they have reached this limit. remote: warning: No webhooks or actions will be performed for this push as it updates more than 5000 branches.

Join the discussion within GitHub Community.

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Push rules public beta

Say goodbye to unwanted files cluttering your repos, like *.jar or *.so. And limit who can make updates to sensitive files like your Actions workflows with the public beta of push rules. 🎉

A glimpse of push rules in action

You can now enable a new type of ruleset that allows you to control pushes to repositories based on file extensions, file path lengths, file and folder paths and file sizes. Push rules don’t require any branch targeting as they apply to every push to the repository, and also apply to all forks of the repo to ensure all pushes to the repository network are protected.

Push rules are now available for private and internal repositories for GitHub Teams, and across organizations for GitHub Enterprise Cloud.

Learn more about push rules in our documentation and join the community discussion to leave feedback.

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Repository Rules – configure merge queue rule – public beta

Configuring merge queue in your repo rulesets is now available in public beta!

Screenshot showing the configuration of merge queue inside a ruleset

Merge queue & rule insights

Until now, rule insights would only list one pull request as merged even when multiple pull requests were merged by the queue at the same time. Also in this beta, each pull request in a merge queue will have an individual record in rule insights, linked to the actor that added the pull request to the merge queue.

Example screenshot showing rules insights and all PRs from a queue

Within the additional data of a rule insight dialog you can now see all the pull requests that merged in the same group along with the checks needed for the queue.

Example screenshot of details of a queue in rule insights

Limitations

  • The merge queue rule cannot be configured via an API. This feature will be available in the near future.
  • Merge Queue for branch protections and repository rules do not support wildcard patterns
  • Not supported in organization rulesets.
  • Multiple merge queues configured against a single branch will prevent merging.

Join the discussion within GitHub Community.

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Repository Custom Properties GA and Ruleset Improvements

repository custom properties banner image

We’re excited to announce the general availability of Repository Custom Properties, a major enhancement to how repositories are managed and classified across GitHub organizations.

Properties offer a flexible way to add meaningful metadata to your repositories that simplifies repository classification, enhances discoverability, and seamlessly integrates with rulesets.

Check out this video from our own Jon Peck for a walk through of a common scenario.

New organization repositories list public beta

Starting today the new repositories list view moves to public beta.

Improvements to Repository Rulesets

Repository Rules now support adding Dependabot to bypass lists. This enables you to let Dependabot merge changes to a repository’s protected branch.

Learn more about managing custom properties for your organization and managing rulesets for your organization.

Head over to community discussions for feedback.

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