WorkTracker › Connection guides › GitHub

Connect GitHub to WorkTracker

Commits grouped per repo and piece of work, plus PRs and reviews.

What you need

• A GitHub account with access to the repositories you work in.

Setup

1. Create a personal access token

   Open the pre-filled token page — it is GitHub’s “new classic token” form with the repo scope already ticked and the note filled in. Pick an expiry, click “Generate token” and copy the ghp_… value; GitHub shows it only once. Only ever work in public repositories? A token with no scopes at all is enough.

2. Or use a fine-grained token instead

   Prefer per-repository access? Create a fine-grained token — GitHub cannot pre-tick permissions there, so set them yourself: Repository access → the repositories you work in, then Repository permissions → Contents: Read-only and Pull requests: Read-only (Metadata: Read-only is added automatically). For repositories owned by an organization, pick the organization as resource owner — an owner then approves the token once.

3. Fill in the GitHub card

   In Connections → GitHub enter your GitHub username — the handle, not your email — and the token.

4. Sync

   Run a sync — grouped commits, PRs and reviews appear as work items.

What WorkTracker collects

• Your commits, grouped per repository, day and piece of work (ticket key like PROJ-123 or conventional-commit prefix).
• Pull requests you opened and reviews you gave, as work items.
• Commit messages are re-read transiently for AI summaries — the group stores only references.

Read-only access with your own token; only your activity is fetched. Credentials are stored encrypted (AES-256-GCM) and are never shown again or returned by the API.

Troubleshooting

422 Validation Failed … users do not exist

The username field contains an email address. Use your GitHub handle (the name in your profile URL).

Only public work shows up — private repositories are missing

A classic token needs the full repo scope to search private repositories; a token without it sees public data only. Re-create it from the pre-filled page, or add the missing repositories to your fine-grained token.

Nothing from one organization, everything else works

That organization enforces SAML single sign-on: open your tokens, click the token, and use “Configure SSO” → Authorize next to the organization. A fine-grained token needs an organization owner to approve it under the org’s Settings → Personal access tokens instead.