Using the audit log API for your enterprise

Using the audit log API

You can maintain compliance for your enterprise and secure your intellectual property by interacting with the audit log using the REST API. For more information about the specific events that you can access via the audit log API, see the following articles.

• "Audit log events for your enterprise"
• "Audit log events for your organization"
• "Security log events"

The audit log lists events triggered by activities that affect your enterprise within the last 180 days. The audit log retains Git events for seven days.

By default, only events from the past three months are displayed. To view older events, you must specify a date range with the created parameter. For more information, see "Understanding the search syntax."

Timestamps and date fields in the API response are measured in UTC epoch milliseconds.

You can use the read:audit_log scope to access the audit log via the API.

Each audit log API endpoint has a rate limit of 1,750 queries per hour for a given combination of user and IP address. To avoid rate limiting, integrations that query the audit log API should query at a maximum frequency of 1,750 queries per hour. Additionally, if your integration receives a rate limit error (typically a 403 or 429 response), it should wait before making another request to the API. For more information, see "Rate limits for the REST API" and "Best practices for using the REST API."

For more information about the audit log REST API, see "REST API endpoints for enterprise audit logs" and "REST API endpoints for organizations."

Example 1: All events in an enterprise, for a specific date, with pagination

You can use cursor based pagination. For more information about pagination, see "Using pagination in the REST API."

The query below searches for audit log events created on Jan 1st, 2022 in the avocado-corp enterprise, and returns the first page with a maximum of 100 items per page using pagination. For more information about pagination, see "Using pagination in the REST API." The --include flag causes the headers to be returned along with the response.

curl --include -H "Authorization: Bearer TOKEN" \
--request GET \
"https://api.github.com/enterprises/avocado-corp/audit-log?phrase=created:2022-01-01&per_page=100"

If there are more than 100 results, the link header will include URLs to fetch the next, first, and previous pages of results.

link: <https://api.github.com/enterprises/13827/audit-log?%3A2022-11-01=&per_page=100&after=MS42NjQzODMzNTk5MjdlKzEyfDloQzBxdURzaFdVbVlLWjkxRU9mNXc%3D&before=>; rel="next",
<https://api.github.com/enterprises/13827/audit-log?%3A2022-11-01=&per_page=100&after=&before=>; rel="first",
<https://api.github.com/enterprises/13827/audit-log?%3A2022-11-01=&per_page=100&after=&before=MS42Njc4NDA2MjM4MzNlKzEyfExqeG5sUElvNEZMbG1XZHA5akdKTVE%3D>; rel="prev"

Copy the corresponding pagination link into your next request. For example:

curl -I -H "Authorization: Bearer TOKEN" \
--request GET \
"https://api.github.com/enterprises/13827/audit-log?%3A2022-11-01=&per_page=100&after=MS42Njc4NDA2MjM5NDFlKzEyfHRYa3AwSkxUd2xyRjA5bWxfOS1RbFE%3D&before="

Example 2: Events for pull requests in an enterprise, for a specific date and actor

You can specify multiple search phrases, such as created and actor, by separating them in your formed URL with the + symbol or ASCII character code %20.

The query below searches for audit log events for pull requests, where the event occurred on or after Jan 1st, 2022 in the avocado-corp enterprise, and the action was performed by the octocat user:

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer TOKEN" \
--request GET \
"https://api.github.com/enterprises/avocado-corp/audit-log?phrase=action:pull_request+created:>=2022-01-01+actor:octocat"

Example 3: Events for Git activity in an enterprise, for a specific date and actor

You can search for Git events in an enterprise, such as cloning, fetching, and pushing, by adding include=git as a parameter in the URL. Alternatively, you can use include=all to search for both web events and Git events.

The query below searches for audit log events for Git activity, where the event occurred after Jan 1st, 2024, in the avocado-corp enterprise, and the action was performed by the octocat user.

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer TOKEN" \
--request GET \
"https://api.github.com/enterprises/avocado-corp/audit-log?phrase=created:>=2024-01-01+actor:octocat&include=git"