# GitHub accounts

Give an agent a managed GitHub identity — a `gh` CLI and `git push` over
HTTPS, both authenticated by an operator-supplied personal access token
(PAT) — so it can run GitHub API calls and push commits without any manual
`gh auth login`.

Provisioning is UI-driven, mirroring the dashboard side of the
[matrix account](matrix.md) flow: paste a PAT into the agent's credentials
tab and it works. No per-agent nix declaration, no rebuild — the token is
injected into the agent's state dir out of band.

## Enabling

The integration is **on by default** for every agent (`hyperhive.github.enable
= true`), inert until a PAT is provisioned. There is nothing per-agent to
declare — an agent gains GitHub simply by having a PAT written to its token
file.

To turn it off for the whole hive, set the host option:

```nix
services.hyperhive.github.enable = false;
```

hive-c0re's meta-flake renderer then injects `hyperhive.github.enable = false`
into every agent, so no agent ships the `gh` wrapper or credential helper.
(`hyperhive.github.enable` also exists per-agent for completeness, but the
hive-wide host switch is the intended control.)

github.com only. The token **value** never touches nix — it is written to
`<state>/github-token` separately (see [Provisioning](#provisioning)).

## How the agent uses it

When enabled, the container gets:

- **A `gh` wrapper** on `PATH` (shadowing the raw `gh`) that exports
  `GH_TOKEN` from the token file at invocation, then execs real `gh`. So
  `gh pr create`, `gh api …`, etc. just work — `gh` derives the identity
  from the token.
- **A git credential helper** (`git-credential-hive-github`), wired via a
  host-scoped `/etc/gitconfig` entry for `https://github.com`, so
  `git push https://github.com/<owner>/<repo>` authenticates as
  `x-access-token` + the PAT (GitHub ignores the username for PAT auth).
  Host-scoped, so it never touches the forge (`localhost:3000`) or any
  other remote.
- **Env**: `HIVE_GITHUB_TOKEN_FILE` (the token path — never the secret).

Both the wrapper and the credential helper read the token from the file
**at invocation time**, so a PAT written (or rotated) mid-session takes
effect immediately — no container rebuild or restart. Until the file
exists, `gh` / `git push` simply fail unauthenticated.

## Provisioning

The PAT is operator-supplied. The primary path is the **dashboard
credentials tab** (github sub-tab): paste the PAT for an agent and submit
(`POST /api/github-account`). There is also a CLI path for
recovery/scripting:

```sh
hivectl github set-token <agent> --token-stdin   # paste the PAT on stdin (preferred)
hivectl github set-token <agent> --token <pat>    # inline (visible in shell history)
```

Either path has hive-c0re delegate the write to hive-priv, which stores the
file `0600` owned by the agent (so the container can read it) — the same
credential-injection path as forge/matrix tokens. See
[hivectl → GitHub](tools/hivectl.md#github).

## Security

- Use a **dedicated bot account**, never a human's.
- Mint a **minimally-scoped PAT** — only the repos/scopes the agent's
  workflow needs. Agents have passwordless sudo, so a compromised or
  hallucinating agent can act as the account within the token's scopes;
  scope is the real blast-radius limiter, and the container boundary is
  the enforcement. See [security.md](security.md).