GitHub action with access to private repo

Question

I would like to run the CI part of my Node / Ionic project where I just yesterday added a custom capacitor plugin - repo A.

This plugin sits in repo B.

On my dev machine I added B as

npm install https://PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN@github.com/ME/B.git --save

to project A.

package.json now contains

"B": "git+https://PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN@github.com/ME/B.git",

and I pushed this to my current merge request. However, the CI pipeline is telling me now:

  npm install
  shell: /usr/bin/bash -e {0}
npm ERR! Error while executing:
npm ERR! /usr/bin/git ls-remote -h -t https://***@github.com/ME/B.git
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! remote: Repository not found.
npm ERR! fatal: repository 'https://github.com/ME/B.git/' not found
npm ERR! 

Project B is a private repo. My account owns both repos and I am using my newly created Personal Access Token.

What should I check? I can pull the repo on my local, but there I am setup with my git+ssh env credentials too, so it might work just because of that...

Answer 1

Check first if you need your GitHub username:

 https://myGitHubUsername:PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN@github.com/ME/B.git
         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Then, if you need the token in the git+https URL:

" How to use private GitHub repo as npm dependency " mentions the use of npm-cli-login instead:

- name: Login to GitHub private NPM registry
  env:
    CI_ACCESS_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NAME_OF_YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN_SECRET }}
  shell: bash
  run: |
    npm install -g npm-cli-login
    npm-cli-login -u "USERNAME" -p "${CI_ACCESS_TOKEN}" -e "EMAIL" -r "https://npm.pkg.github.com" -s "@SCOPE"

Answer 2

Most answers that I have seen to install private GitHub repo

"package": "git+https://PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN:x-oauth-basic@github.com/username/packge.git"

or

"package": "https://PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN:x-oauth-basic@github.com/username/packge.git"

This works in local, however, if you are using actions/checkout@v2 in your github Action then you need to use persist-credentials:false like the following.

- uses: actions/checkout@v2
  with:
    persist-credentials: false

otherwise, you'll get an error message remote: Repository not found.

other ways to install private github repo

if you are using ssh like following

"package": "git+ssh://git@github.com/username/packge.git"

then you have to use the ssh-agent in your github action like this

- uses: webfactory/ssh-agent@v0.5.4
  with:
      ssh-private-key: ${{ secrets.SSH_PRIVATE_KEY }}

here SSH_PRIVATE_KEY is a private key from public-private key pair generated using ssh-keygen and the public key is added as a deploy key in the private repo that you are trying to install as an npm package. for more information about this, you can check the official doc