Import GitHub repo permissions error

In which I turn on permissions until things work

Profile pictureToni Petrina
Published on 2023-10-101 min read
  • #terraform

While importing GitHub repository into Terraform, the following error ocurred:

│ Error: error reading repository vulnerability alerts: GET https://api.github.com/repos/OWNER/REPO/vulnerability-alerts: 403 Resource not accessible by personal access token []

Since I've been using PAT for authentication, I figured there was a setting missing. The error wouldn't go away even if I set:

resource "github_repository" "REPO" {
    vulnerability_alerts                    = false
    ignore_vulnerability_alerts_during_read = true
}

So, after lots of trial and error, turns out that the following repository permission needs to be added: Administration: Read-only.

Unfortunately, knowing what permissions to add to the PAT used in Terraform is a bit of a game of whack-a-mole. Fortunately, there is only so many options and one can always just give full access to PAT.


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