How to invite a user to a private github repo within an organisation using the command line

Question

I am trying to add users to a private Github repo within an organisation. Starting from this post, I've simply changed the API endpoint to cope with organizations (as explained here), and I end up with the following command:

gh api orgs/MY_ORG/repos/MY_USER_NAME/MY_REPO/collaborators/COLLABORATOR_USER_NAME -f '{"permission":"maintain"}';

This command systematically returns a 404 error (note that I also get a 404 when I just try to check if a user has access to a repo, i.e. the GET version of the above command). I also need to mention that this doesn't seem to be a trivial gh auth login issue since a command like gh repo create MY_ORG/MY_REPO works fine.

Here is also some technical details:

• os: macosx 10.15.16
• git: 2.24.3
• gh: 1.1.0

Neoma

I see adding a collaborator for a repo (docs.github.com/en/free-pro-team@latest/rest/reference/…), not for an org (docs.github.com/en/free-pro-team@latest/rest/reference/orgs). Can you try with gh api repos/MY_USER_NAME/MY_REPO/coll... instead of gh api orgs/MY_ORG/repos/MY_USER_NAME/MY_REPO/coll...? – Scream

I tried to get rid of orgs/MY_ORG as you suggested but this doesn't work. Interestingly, the command you suggested return a 404 with the body containing "documentation_url": "https://docs.github.com/rest/reference/repos#check-if-a-user-is-a-repository-collaborator" (showing that GitHub is somehow able to parse the endpoint) while the initial command returns "documentation_url": "https://docs.github.com/rest". So I am now wondering if it is actually possible to add user on a repo within an organisation, maybe the API doesn't support such a feature at this stage. – Neoma

Answer 1

I take the initiative to answer my own question here since after some investigations (thanks to mislav for his help) and trials and errors, I ve found the proper way to add collaborators to a GitHub repo within an organization with the CLI. I think it is worth posting it, hopefully this will help others.

Invite an outside collaborator to a repo within an organization

gh api -X PUT repos/:org/:repo/collaborators/:username -f permission=:perm

the -X PUT specifies that the request is a PUT and not a GET (default request). The repo's identifier is specified by :org/:repo (note that if the repo is not under an organization, the identifier will be :owner/:repo). The :perm argument indicates the type of access, the default value is push (see here)

So assume I want to provide admin access to jonsnow to the repo winterfell under the organization got, I will use the following command

gh api -X PUT repos/got/winterfell/collaborators/jonsnow -f permission=admin

Note that if you send an invite for the repo directly, the user will appear as an outside collaborator (not as an organization member)

Add a member to the organization and invite him to a repo

You just need to include the user as a member to the organisation beforehand with

gh api -X PUT /orgs/:org/memberships/:username -f role=:role

and then you can provide him access to a specific repo with the same command as above, i.e.

gh api -X PUT repos/:org/:repo/collaborators/:username -f permission=:perm

Note that the value for the various :role can be found here

Neoma

Actually, your don t need to invite the user first. If you send the invite for the repo directly, the user will be flagged as outside collaborator. In the opposite, if you add the user to the organisation first, he will appear as an organisation member. But thanks for flagging this, I will edit the answer to make this more explicit. – Neoma

Thank you for this information, that wasn't clear for me indeed. – Scream

Answer 2

You can set organization membership for a user

put /orgs/{org}/memberships/{username}

You can add a collaborator to a repo

put /repos/{owner}/{repo}/collaborators/{username}

But I don't think you can combine the two (add a collaborator to an org repo)

That is because that collaborator need to be a member of the organisation first (so receive and accept the invitation), before being added to a repository.

Scream

Thanks! Your reply puts me on the right tracks. To make it work, we shall actually use /repos/{org}/{repo}/collaborators/{username} . The {org} somehow becomes the owner of the associated repos. I nevertheless still get an error when trying to add a member I think the syntax for the -f argument has changed, gh complains that we shall use a key=value syntax. I tried gh api /repos/{org}/{repo}/collaborators/{username} -f "permission=maintain" but this fails. Any idea on how to fix this? – Neoma

Not sure. I am outside, with my phone. I will have a look when I get back. – Scream