How to access GitHub API using personal access tokens in shell script?

Question

how is it going?

So I used a bash script to create a remote repository using a password to access a endpoint like this:

NEWVAR="{\"name\":\"$githubrepo\",\"private\":\"true\"}"
curl -u $USERNAME https://api.github.com/user/repos -d "$NEWVAR"

However, GitHub is going to not allow developers to access endpoints using passwords anymore. So my question is how do I create a remote repository using a personal access token?

Does this answer your question? How to create repository in github through github API?. You have a specific answer on how to do it with authorization tokens here: stackoverflow.com/a/56099606/7939871 — Léa Gris
– Léa Gris, Commented Aug 26, 2020 at 20:26
Good examples from a GitHub employee's blog: dev.to/gr2m/… — Jesse Nickles
– Jesse Nickles, Commented Dec 30, 2022 at 9:44

Léa Gris · Accepted Answer · 2020-08-28 09:38:23Z

4

use --header to transmit authorization:

#!/usr/bin/env sh

github_user='The GitHub user name'
github_repo='The repository name'

github_oauth_token='The GitHub API auth token'

# Create the JSON data payload arguments needed to create
# a GitHub repository.
json_data="$(
  jq \
    --null-input \
    --compact-output \
    --arg name "$github_repo" \
    '{$name, "private":true}'
)"

if json_reply="$(
  curl \
    --fail \
    --request POST \
    --header 'Accept: application/vnd.github.v3+json' \
    --header "Authorization: token $github_oauth_token" \
    --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
    --data "$json_data" \
    'https://api.github.com/user/repos'
)"; then
  # Save the JSON answer of the repository creation
  printf '%s' "$json_reply" >"$github_repo.json"
  printf 'Successfully created the repository: %s\n' "$github_repo"
else
  printf 'Could not create the repository: %s\n' "$github_repo" >&2
  printf 'The GitHub API replied with this JSON:\n%s\n' "$json_reply" >&2
fi

See my answer here for a featured implementation example: https://stackoverflow.com/a/57634322/7939871

edited Aug 28, 2020 at 9:38

answered Aug 26, 2020 at 16:40

Léa Gris

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4 Comments

Srikar Karra Over a year ago

So I am a beginner programmer and I have never used API's before so I dont really understand this code. With this said, I got the error "curl: (22) The requested URL returned an error: 400 Bad Request". What should I do about this? I inserted all the data including my token and what i want my github repo to be called.

Léa Gris Over a year ago

@SrikarKarra I can only help about your authentication question here. You did not mention what you intended to accomplish by calling the GitHub's API methods. To find out how to call methods and what parameters and JSON reply it gives. I direct you to docs.github.com/en/rest.

Srikar Karra Over a year ago

The main purpose of this script is to create a remote repo using a bash script. I originally used password authentication which worked perfectly, however, GitHub will soon be removing this feature. So I am trying to use a personal access token. Here is the repository github.com/Srikar-Karra/CTDIR. I am getting the 400 bad request error by using the code provided in the answer above. So could you think of some possible issues?

Léa Gris Over a year ago

@SrikarKarra I just fixed the GitHub API url needed for the creation call. Also tested it actually works by creating a testrepository with my script above on my GitHub account. So it shall be a perfectly working base for you to expand on it. You need a GitHub API token with the repo scope to be able to create repository using this token.

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