Generate a GitHub Personal Access Token for Private Composer Packages

composer-private-package-github-token.md

Generate a GitHub Personal Access Token for Private Composer Packages

If you're trying to load a private repository with Composer/Laravel, we'll need to generate a GitHub Personal Access Token (similar to OAuth token) to access the repository during a composer install without entering credentials.

If you have used other Github packages from {my-org} before, you may be able to skip this step.

1. Visit https://github.com/settings/tokens.

2. Click Generate new token.

    Token Description: (your computer name)
    Scopes:
        [X] repo
            [X] repo:status
            [X] repo_deployment
            [X] public_repo
            [X] repo:invite
   

3. Click Generate token.

4. Copy the generated string to a safe place, such as a password safe.

5. Open Terminal and add the github token. Note: The file may be empty.

    #  nano ~/.composer/auth.json
   
    {
        "github-oauth": {
            "github.com": "abc123def456ghi7890jkl987mno654pqr321stu"
        }
    }
   

6. Test if the authentication is working by doing a clone.

    cd ~/Sites/
    git clone https://github.com/my-org/my-private-repo
    (You should not be prompted for credentials)