Using the audit log API for your enterprise

Using the audit log API

You can interact with the audit log using the GraphQL API or the REST API.

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

Querying the audit log GraphQL API

To ensure your intellectual property is secure, and you maintain compliance for your enterprise, you can use the audit log GraphQL API to keep copies of your audit log data and monitor:

Access to your organization or repository settings
Changes in permissions
Added or removed users in an organization, repository, or team
Users being promoted to admin
Changes to permissions of a GitHub App

Note that you can't retrieve Git events using the audit log API.

The GraphQL response can include data for up to 90 to 120 days.

Example 1: Members added to or removed from organizations in an enterprise

The query below fetches the audit logs for the avocado-corp enterprise and returns the first 10 organizations in the enterprise, where the only actions performed were adding or removing a member from an organization. The first 20 audit log entries for each organization are returned.

This query uses the auditlog field from the Organization object, and the OrgAddMemberAuditEntry and OrgRemoveMemberAuditEntry objects. The GitHub account querying the enterprise audit log must be an organization owner for each organization within the enterprise.

{
  enterprise(slug: "avocado-corp") {
    organizations(first: 10, orderBy: {field: LOGIN, direction: DESC}) {
      nodes {
        name
        auditLog(first: 20) {
          edges {
            node {
              ... on OrgAddMemberAuditEntry {
                action
                actorLogin
                createdAt
              }
              ... on OrgRemoveMemberAuditEntry {
                action
                actorLogin
                createdAt
              }
            }
          }
        }
      }
      pageInfo {
        hasNextPage
        endCursor
      }
    }
  }
}

The GraphQL API will return at most 100 nodes per query. To retrieve additional results, you'll need to implement pagination. For more information, see "Resource limitations" in the GraphQL API documentation and Pagination in the official GraphQL documentation.

Example 2: Events in an organization, for a specific date and actor

You can specify multiple search phrases, such as created and actor, by separating them in your query string with a space.

The query below fetches all the audit logs for the avocado-corp enterprise that relate to the octo-org organization, where the actions were performed by the octocat user on or after the 1 Jan, 2022. The first 20 audit log entries are returned, with the newest log entry appearing first.

This query uses the AuditEntry interface. The GitHub account querying the enterprise audit log must be an owner of the octo-org organization.

{
  enterprise(slug: "avocado-corp") {
    organizations(first: 1, query: "octo-org") {
      nodes {
        name
        auditLog(first: 20, query: "actor:octocat created:>=2022-01-01T00:00:00.000Z", orderBy: {field: CREATED_AT, direction: DESC}) {
          edges {
            node {
              ... on AuditEntry {
                action
                actorLogin
                createdAt
                user {
                  name
                }
              }
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

For more query examples, see the platform-samples repository.

Querying the audit log REST API

To ensure your intellectual property is secure, and you maintain compliance for your enterprise, you can use the audit log REST API to keep copies of your audit log data and monitor:

Access to your organization or repository settings
Changes in permissions
Added or removed users in an organization, repository, or team
Users being promoted to admin
Changes to permissions of a GitHub App

The audit log lists events triggered by activities that affect your enterprise. Audit logs for GitHub Enterprise Server are retained indefinitely.

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."

For more information about the audit log REST API, see "Enterprise administration" and "Organizations."

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

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

Example with page-based pagination

The query below searches for audit log events created on Jan 1st, 2022 in the avocado-corp enterprise, and return 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."

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer TOKEN" \
--request GET \
"https://api.github.com/enterprises/avocado-corp/audit-log?phrase=created:2022-01-01&page=1&per_page=100"

Example with cursor-based pagination

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"

Using the audit log API for your enterprise

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