About authentication
Many REST API endpoints require authentication or return additional information if you are authenticated. Additionally, you can make more requests per hour when you are authenticated.
You can authenticate your request by sending a token in the Authorization header of your request. In the following example, replace YOUR-TOKEN with a reference to your token:
curl --request GET \
--url "https://HOSTNAME/api/v3/octocat" \
--header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR-TOKEN"Note: In most cases, you can use Authorization: Bearer or Authorization: token to pass a token. However, if you are passing a JSON web token (JWT), you must use Authorization: Bearer.
If you try to use a REST API endpoint without a token or with a token that has insufficient permissions, you will receive a 404 Not Found or 403 Forbidden response.
Authenticating with a personal access token
If you want to use the GitHub REST API for personal use, you can create a personal access token. For more information about creating a personal access token, see "Creating a personal access token."
Authenticating with a token generated by an app
If you want to use the API for an organization or on behalf of another user, GitHub recommends that you use a GitHub App. For more information, see "About authentication with a GitHub App."
You can also create an OAuth token with an OAuth App to access the REST API. However, GitHub recommends that you use a GitHub App instead. GitHub Apps allow more control over the access and permission that the app has.
Using basic authentication
Some REST API endpoints for GitHub Apps and OAuth Apps require you to use basic authentication to access the endpoint. You will use the app's client ID as the username and the app's client secret as the password.
For example:
curl --request POST \
--url "https://HOSTNAME/api/v3/authorizations" \
--user ":" You can find the client ID and generate a client secret on the settings page for your app. For user-owned GitHub Apps, the settings page is https://github.com/settings/apps/APP-SLUG. For organization-owned GitHub Apps, the settings page is https://github.com/organizations/ORGANIZATION/settings/apps/APP-SLUG. Replace APP-SLUG with the sluggified name of your app and ORGANIZATION with the sluggified name of your organization. For example, https://github.com/organizations/octo-org/settings/apps/octo-app.
Authenticating in a GitHub Actions workflow
If you want to use the API in a GitHub Actions workflow, GitHub recommends that you authenticate with the built-in GITHUB_TOKEN instead of creating a token. You can grant permissions to the GITHUB_TOKEN with the permissions key. For more information, see "Automatic token authentication."
Authenticating with username and password
Authentication with username and password is not supported. If you try to authenticate with user name and password, you will receive a 4xx error.