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[bug] GitHub App installation tokens (ghs_) are rejected by the credential preflight

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Assessment

Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Newbie friendliness
48/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Clearly specified
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
github, typescript

Research direction

Start in packages/backend/src/github.ts at getGitHubReposFromConfig and the GET /user preflight around lines 115 and 185; compare the existing token detection and authentication handling in github.ts and utils.ts:163-177. Check the existing GitHub token-type unit test and verify that a ghs_ token can discover repositories without the user-only preflight failing; consider the users: paths at lines 251 and 322 as additional scope.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

bug triage needed
Describe the bug

Sourcebot recognises GitHub App installation tokens as a supported token type —
GitHubTokenType declares 'app_installation' and detectGitHubTokenType() returns it
for the ghs_ prefix (packages/backend/src/github.ts:26,43), with a unit test asserting
exactly that.

However, a connector configured with one fails before listing a single repository.
getGitHubReposFromConfig validates the credential with GET /user (github.ts:185) and
rethrows on failure. An installation token authenticates as an installation, not a user,
so GitHub answers:

403  "Resource not accessible by integration"

No permission grant can satisfy this, because there is no user to return. The check also
cannot be skipped: its guard is isAuthenticated: !!token (github.ts:115), so the only
way to avoid it is to configure no token at all — which limits indexing to public
repositories.

Expected: a connector configured with an installation token indexes normally.
Actual: repository discovery aborts with a 403 at the preflight.

The inconsistency is the bug: every other GitHub path already handles installation
tokens correctly. getRepoAuth builds x-access-token: <token> git credentials from one
(utils.ts:163-177), which is precisely the documented form for installation tokens, and
repos.listForOrg accepts one. Only the preflight rejects it.

Note - The credential is simply an installation token supplied as an ordinary
connector token.

To reproduce
  1. Register a GitHub App, install it on an organisation, grant Contents: read and
    Metadata: read.
  2. Mint an installation token:
    POST /app/installations/{installation_id}/access_tokens (returns a ghs_… token).
  3. Configure a GitHub connector with that token and an orgs entry:
    { "type": "github", "token": { "env": "GITHUB_TOKEN" }, "orgs": ["my-org"] }
    
  4. Start Sourcebot and trigger a connection sync.

Result: sync fails immediately. Logs show Failed to authenticate with GitHub and a 403
Resource not accessible by integration. Zero repositories are discovered.

Substituting a personal access token for the same organisation works, which isolates the
failure to the token type rather than to permissions or configuration.

Sourcebot deployment information

Sourcebot version (e.g. v3.0.1): v5.1.12 (docker.sourcebot.dev/sourcebot-dev/sourcebot),
also reproduced against main at the time of writing.

Additional information

Two further user-context calls exist in the same file and will fail the same way for the
same reason, though only when users: is configured rather than orgs::

  • repos.listForAuthenticatedUserGET /user/repos (github.ts:251)
  • rest.search.reposGET /search/repositories?q=user:… (github.ts:322)

A fix for the preflight is proposed in the linked pull request. Happy to extend it to
those two paths if you would prefer them handled in the same change.

Dominant language
TypeScript
Stars
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Forks
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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