Source: securityboulevard.com – Author: Jason Kwon
Organizations may have a need to write applications or scripts which call GitHub APIs.
One common method for authenticating against GitHub APIs is to use personal access tokens (PATs), which are user-generated, fine-grained tokens. These tokens can be limited to specific repositories, and their permissions can be scoped to specific API operations. However, they do have potential drawbacks:
1) PATs are associated with a specific-user, so if these tokens are associated with a workflow, the original user who created the token must manage the lifecycle of these tokens, which includes creation, deletion, or re-generation of these tokens.
2) PATs typically have an expiration time of seven, 30, 60, or 90 days, or no expiration at all. Custom expiration dates can be specified, so the minimum time a new token would be valid would be the next calendar date – tokens can’t be set to expire for time periods less than a calendar day. If these tokens are exposed or exfiltrated, they could potentially be used improperly for the duration of their validity.
GitHub Applications allow for short-lived credentials which are associated with an organization to be created, instead of an individual. Similar to PATs, their permissions can be limited, and their access can be restricted to specific repositories. By default, the tokens generated by GitHub Apps have an expiration time of 8 hours.
Creating a GitHub Application
To create a GitHub application, go to your organization settings. Under Developer Settings, select GitHub Apps.
Original Post URL: https://securityboulevard.com/2025/06/replacing-a-github-personal-access-token-with-a-github-application/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=replacing-a-github-personal-access-token-with-a-github-application
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