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)
   

Thanks.

Rather than editing the config file, I prefer using:

composer config -g github-oauth.github.com abc123def456ghi7890jkl987mno654pqr321stu

It might also be worth noting that, for GitHub Actions or other build environments, one can set an environment variable:

        COMPOSER_AUTH: '{"github-oauth": {"github.com": "abc123def456ghi7890jkl987mno654pqr321stu"}}'

Curious why you are testing by doing a Git Pull?

For example, my Git checkouts work fine, but my composer update via Public and Private reposity stopped working ( I think my token expired ).

I ran composer config --global --auth github-oauth.github.com ghp_xxxxxxxx which saved to my auth.json file but I am still getting errors.

    "github-oauth": {
        "github.com": "ghp_xxxxxxxx"
    },

Is there a cache or something that I should clear?

git@ uses the oAuth while https:// uses basic auth with a username and token for the password.