Note: GitHub-hosted runners are not currently supported on GitHub Enterprise Server. You can see more information about planned future support on the GitHub public roadmap.
Overview
You can use permissions
to modify the default permissions granted to the GITHUB_TOKEN
, adding or removing access as required, so that you only allow the minimum required access. For more information, see "Automatic token authentication."
You can use permissions
either as a top-level key, to apply to all jobs in the workflow, or within specific jobs. When you add the permissions
key within a specific job, all actions and run commands within that job that use the GITHUB_TOKEN
gain the access rights you specify. For more information, see jobs.<job_id>.permissions
.
For each of the available scopes, shown in the table below, you can assign one of the permissions: read
, write
, or none
. If you specify the access for any of these scopes, all of those that are not specified are set to none
.
Available scopes and details of what each allows an action to do:
Scope | Allows an action using GITHUB_TOKEN to |
---|---|
actions | Work with GitHub Actions. For example, actions: write permits an action to cancel a workflow run. For more information, see "Permissions required for GitHub Apps." |
| checks
| Work with check runs and check suites. For example, checks: write
permits an action to create a check run. For more information, see "Permissions required for GitHub Apps." |
| contents
| Work with the contents of the repository. For example, contents: read
permits an action to list the commits, and contents: write
allows the action to create a release. For more information, see "Permissions required for GitHub Apps." |
| deployments
| Work with deployments. For example, deployments: write
permits an action to create a new deployment. For more information, see "Permissions required for GitHub Apps." |
| discussions
| Work with GitHub Discussions. For example, discussions: write
permits an action to close or delete a discussion. For more information, see "Using the GraphQL API for Discussions." |
| issues
| Work with issues. For example, issues: write
permits an action to add a comment to an issue. For more information, see "Permissions required for GitHub Apps." |
| packages
| Work with GitHub Packages. For example, packages: write
permits an action to upload and publish packages on GitHub Packages. For more information, see "About permissions for GitHub Packages." |
| pages
| Work with GitHub Pages. For example, pages: write
permits an action to request a GitHub Pages build. For more information, see "Permissions required for GitHub Apps." |
| pull-requests
| Work with pull requests. For example, pull-requests: write
permits an action to add a label to a pull request. For more information, see "Permissions required for GitHub Apps." |
| repository-projects
| Work with GitHub projects (classic). For example, repository-projects: write
permits an action to add a column to a project (classic). For more information, see "Permissions required for GitHub Apps." |
| security-events
| Work with GitHub code scanning and Dependabot alerts. For example, security-events: read
permits an action to list the Dependabot alerts for the repository, and security-events: write
allows an action to update the status of a code scanning alert. For more information, see "Repository permissions for 'Code scanning alerts'" and "Repository permissions for 'Dependabot alerts'" in "Permissions required for GitHub Apps." |
| statuses
| Work with commit statuses. For example, statuses:read
permits an action to list the commit statuses for a given reference. For more information, see "Permissions required for GitHub Apps." |
Defining access for the GITHUB_TOKEN
scopes
You can define the access that the GITHUB_TOKEN
will permit by specifying read
, write
, or none
as the value of the available scopes within the permissions
key.
permissions:
actions: read|write|none
checks: read|write|none
contents: read|write|none
deployments: read|write|none
issues: read|write|none
discussions: read|write|none
packages: read|write|none
pages: read|write|none
pull-requests: read|write|none
repository-projects: read|write|none
security-events: read|write|none
statuses: read|write|none
If you specify the access for any of these scopes, all of those that are not specified are set to none
.
You can use the following syntax to define one of read-all
or write-all
access for all of the available scopes:
permissions: read-all
permissions: write-all
You can use the following syntax to disable permissions for all of the available scopes:
permissions: {}
Changing the permissions in a forked repository
You can use the permissions
key to add and remove read permissions for forked repositories, but typically you can't grant write access. The exception to this behavior is where an admin user has selected the Send write tokens to workflows from pull requests option in the GitHub Actions settings. For more information, see "Managing GitHub Actions settings for a repository."
Setting the GITHUB_TOKEN
permissions for all jobs in a workflow
You can specify permissions
at the top level of a workflow, so that the setting applies to all jobs in the workflow.
Example: Setting the GITHUB_TOKEN
permissions for an entire workflow
This example shows permissions being set for the GITHUB_TOKEN
that will apply to all jobs in the workflow. All permissions are granted read access.
name: "My workflow"
on: [ push ]
permissions: read-all
jobs:
...
Setting the GITHUB_TOKEN
permissions for a specific job
For a specific job, you can use jobs.<job_id>.permissions
to modify the default permissions granted to the GITHUB_TOKEN
, adding or removing access as required, so that you only allow the minimum required access. For more information, see "Automatic token authentication."
By specifying the permission within a job definition, you can configure a different set of permissions for the GITHUB_TOKEN
for each job, if required. Alternatively, you can specify the permissions for all jobs in the workflow. For information on defining permissions at the workflow level, see permissions
.
Example: Setting the GITHUB_TOKEN
permissions for one job in a workflow
This example shows permissions being set for the GITHUB_TOKEN
that will only apply to the job named stale
. Write access is granted for the issues
and pull-requests
scopes. All other scopes will have no access.
jobs:
stale:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
permissions:
issues: write
pull-requests: write
steps:
- uses: actions/stale@v5