This version of GitHub Enterprise was discontinued on 2021-06-09. No patch releases will be made, even for critical security issues. For better performance, improved security, and new features, upgrade to the latest version of GitHub Enterprise. For help with the upgrade, contact GitHub Enterprise support.

Creating a repository on GitHub

After you create your repository on GitHub Enterprise Server, you can customize its settings and content.

  • About repositories

    A repository contains all of your project's files and each file's revision history. You can discuss and manage your project's work within the repository.

  • About repository visibility

    You can restrict who has access to a repository by choosing a repository's visibility: public, internal, or private.

  • Creating a new repository

    You can create a new repository on your personal account or any organization where you have sufficient permissions.

  • Creating a repository from a template

    You can generate a new repository with the same directory structure and files as an existing repository.

  • About READMEs

    You can add a README file to your repository to tell other people why your project is useful, what they can do with your project, and how they can use it.

  • About code owners

    You can use a CODEOWNERS file to define individuals or teams that are responsible for code in a repository.

  • About repository languages

    The files and directories within a repository determine the languages that make up the repository. You can view a repository's languages to get a quick overview of the repository.

  • Licensing a repository

    Public repositories on GitHub are often used to share open source software. For your repository to truly be open source, you'll need to license it so that others are free to use, change, and distribute the software.

  • Creating a template repository

    You can make an existing repository a template, so you and others can generate new repositories with the same directory structure, branches, and files.

  • Creating an issues-only repository

    GitHub Enterprise Server does not provide issues-only access permissions, but you can accomplish this using a second repository which contains only the issues.

  • Limits for viewing content and diffs in a repository

    Certain types of resources can be quite large, requiring excessive processing on GitHub Enterprise Server. Because of this, limits are set to ensure requests complete in a reasonable amount of time.

  • Duplicating a repository

    To duplicate a repository without forking it, you can run a special clone command, then mirror-push to the new repository.