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hyperhive/docs/integrations/github.md
atlas 8ad2af735e swarm-controller: refuse linking over an existing account
The matrix, forge and github link routes wrote their credential
unconditionally, so linking a name that was already linked replaced the
working account. For matrix that lost the device the agent's crypto store
belongs to (#4838).

Each route now reads the account's store path first and answers 409,
naming the existing account, when something is stored there. Nothing is
written. Replacing an account takes the delete from #4899, then a link.

The matrix route checks before password mode's login, so a refused link
mints no new device at the homeserver.

The check is a read then a write, not an atomic step; two concurrent
links to one name can still both pass it.

Closes #4856
2026-10-03 13:49:03 +02:00

6.9 KiB

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: link a PAT to the agent in the swarm UI and it works. No per-agent nix declaration, no rebuild — the agent fetches the token from the swarm secret store itself.

Enabling

The integration is on by default for every agent (services.hyperhive.agent.github.enable = true), inert until the operator provisions a PAT. No per-agent declaration is needed — an agent gains GitHub by having a PAT stored for it.

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

services.hyperhive.github.enable = false;

hive-c0re's meta-flake renderer then injects services.hyperhive.agent.github.enable = false into every agent, so no agent ships the gh wrapper, the credential helper or the token fetch. (services.hyperhive.agent.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 — the agent writes it to <state>/github-token at runtime (see Provisioning).

Provisioning

The PAT is operator-supplied. In the swarm UI, open the agent on /agents, choose link github account and paste the PAT (PUT /api/hives/{hive}/agents/{agent}/github-account). swarm-controller stores it at swarm/agents/<agent>/github-token in the swarm secret store; no hive writes it. One token per agent: swarm-controller refuses to link another until you delete the stored one, and no route hands it back.

The agent's hive-agent-github-token unit reads that path under the agent's own store certificate and writes <state>/github-token (0600, owned by the agent), on boot and every two minutes, replacing the file only when the token changed. It needs a store identity (services.hyperhive.agent.bao.addr); an agent without one gets no token. The unit never deletes the file: a github-token already in place stays when the store holds none or doesn't answer. Where the token lives and who reads it: credentials.md.

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.

Implementation

How the agent's `gh`/`git push` actually authenticate, and how the notification poller works

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.

Both scripts read the token from <state>/github-token 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 fail unauthenticated. The build bakes the token path into the scripts (rather than reading it from an env var), because claude's Bash tool runs in a minimal environment that wouldn't carry one.

Notifications

hive-github-notify polls github.com for the agent, turning each unread notification thread into a todo. it's a separate binary and a separate systemd unit from the internal forge's poller (hive-forge-notify, see forge.md), installed by nix/agent-modules/github.nix under services.hyperhive.agent.github.enable. Both binaries ship from the one hive-forge-notify derivation, so the unit is a second ExecStart path, not a new package.

Two units rather than one daemon with two loops, because it puts the decision in nix: a hive built without this module has no github poller in its closure at all, which is what makes GitHub access separable rather than merely switched off. it's also why this isn't a cargo feature — a feature would unify across the workspace and cost every crate its build cache.

At runtime the poller needs the PAT above. No PAT, no polling: the unit logs why and exits 0, which is why it's Restart = on-failure and never always — a clean exit on a PAT-less agent must not become a restart loop.

Forgejo models its notifications API on GitHub's, so one tolerant parse serves both: id, repository.full_name, subject {title,url,latest_comment_url} and updated_at line up field for field. Lenient deserializers absorb the two real differences — GitHub sends the thread id as a string where Forgejo sends a number, and says PullRequest where Forgejo says Pull. hive-github-notify prefixes todo keys gh:<id> so a github thread id can't collide with a forge one.

Two host differences worth knowing before touching this code:

  • Auth scheme, not just value. Forgejo takes Authorization: token <t>; GitHub wants Bearer <t> plus Accept: application/vnd.github+json, X-GitHub-Api-Version and a User-Agent. Sending Forgejo's form to GitHub doesn't error — it authenticates as nobody and silently drops to the unauthenticated rate limit. The cheap way to tell the two apart is the rate-limit header: x-ratelimit-remaining near 5000 is an authenticated user, near 60 is anonymous.
  • GitHub sets the cadence. It returns X-Poll-Interval (60s in practice, slower than the poller's own tick) and rate-limits callers who ignore it, so the loop re-arms to the server's interval whenever that's slower than the poller's. A hint faster than the poller's own tick isn't a reason to poll harder.

⚠️ This needs the notifications scope on the PAT. A token minted for gh + git push typically carries repo only, which is enough to push and open PRs but not to read the notification stream (nor to mark a thread read, which is the same scope). A PAT without it doesn't break anything: the poller logs the refusal and stays quiet, and the agent never gets GitHub wakes. If an agent's GitHub notifications never arrive, check the token's scopes first — the symptom is silence, not an error.