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About GitHub Advanced Security

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GitHub makes extra security features available to customers under an Advanced Security license. These features are also enabled for public repositories on GitHub.com.

GitHub Advanced Security is available for enterprise accounts on GitHub Enterprise Cloud and GitHub Enterprise Server. Some features of GitHub Advanced Security are also available for public repositories on GitHub.com. For more information, see "About GitHub's products."

About GitHub Advanced Security

GitHub has many features that help you improve and maintain the quality of your code. Some of these are included in all plans, such as dependency graph and Dependabot alerts. Other security features require a GitHub Advanced Security license to run on repositories apart from public repositories on GitHub.com.

To purchase a GitHub Advanced Security license, you must be using GitHub Enterprise. For information about upgrading to GitHub Enterprise with GitHub Advanced Security, see "GitHub's products" and "About billing for GitHub Advanced Security."

About Advanced Security features

A GitHub Advanced Security license provides the following additional features:

  • Code scanning - Search for potential security vulnerabilities and coding errors in your code. For more information, see "About code scanning."

  • Secret scanning - Detect secrets, for example keys and tokens, that have been checked into the repository. For more information, see "About secret scanning."

  • Dependency review - Show the full impact of changes to dependencies and see details of any vulnerable versions before you merge a pull request. For more information, see "About dependency review."

The table below summarizes the availability of GitHub Advanced Security features for public and private repositories.

Public repositoryPrivate repository without Advanced SecurityPrivate repository with Advanced Security
Code scanningYesNoYes
Secret scanningYes (limited functionality only)NoYes
Dependency reviewYesNoYes

For information about Advanced Security features that are in development, see "GitHub public roadmap." For an overview of all security features, see "GitHub security features."

GitHub Advanced Security features are enabled for all public repositories on GitHub.com. Organizations that use GitHub Enterprise Cloud with Advanced Security can additionally enable these features for private and internal repositories. For more information, see the GitHub Enterprise Cloud documentation.

About starter workflows for Advanced Security

Note: Starter workflows for Advanced Security have been consolidated in a "Security" category in the Actions tab of a repository. This new configuration is currently in beta and subject to change.

GitHub provides starter workflows for security features such as code scanning. You can use these suggested workflows to construct your code scanning workflows, instead of starting from scratch.

For more information on starter workflows, see "Setting up code scanning using starter workflows" and "Using starter workflows."