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And yet, tons of developers install github apps that ask for full permissions to control all repos and can therefore do to same things to every dev usings those services.

github should be ashamed this possibility even exists and double ashamed that their permission system and UX is so poorly conceived that it leads apps to ask for all the permissions.

IMO, github should spend significant effort so that the default is to present the user with a list of repos they want some github integration to have permissions for and then for each repo, the specific permissions needed. They should be designed that minimal permissions is encouraged.

As it is, the path of least resistance for app devs is "give me root" and for users to say "ok, sure"




Why spend that effort when any code you run on your machine (such as dependency post-install scripts, or the dependencies themselves!) can just run `gh auth token` can grab a token for all the code you push up.

By design, the gh cli wants write access to everything on github you can access.


I will note that at least for our GitHub enterprise setup permissions are all granular, tokens are managed by the org and require an approval process.

I’m not sure how much of this is “standard” for an org though.


I personally haven't worked with many of the github apps that you seem to refer to but the few that I've used are only limited to access the specific repositories that I give and within those repositories their access control is scoped as well. I figured this is all stuff that can be controlled on Github's side. Am I mistaken?


Yeah, turns out "modern" software development has more holes than Swiss cheese. What else is new?




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