accessing-github-repos

accessing-github-repos is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from oaustegard/claude-skills. It costs 39 tokens per session (2,219 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A way to access GitHub repositories from containerized environments through GitHub's web API when normal Git cloning is blocked. It also supports private repositories and writing files when a suitable access token is available.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to download files or directory listings, read private repositories, and write files through GitHub's API when the required permissions are available.
Why use it?
It provides another route to repository contents when the environment cannot create a normal Git connection. It also explains how to detect and configure GitHub personal access tokens.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one.

Good fit Use it to download files or directory listings, read private repositories, and write files through GitHub's API when the required permissions are available.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/oaustegard/claude-skills/accessing-github-repos
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add oaustegard/claude-skills --skill accessing-github-repos
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/oaustegard/claude-skills

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for accessing-github-repos

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/oaustegard/claude-skills/accessing-github-repos/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/oaustegard/claude-skills/accessing-github-repos)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/oaustegard/claude-skills/accessing-github-repos"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/oaustegard/claude-skills/accessing-github-repos/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for accessing-github-repos

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/oaustegard/claude-skills/accessing-github-repos"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/oaustegard/claude-skills/accessing-github-repos.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 39 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,219 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 1 finding. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe. Third-party audits
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector warn 7 Sept 2026
SkillSpector: 17 findings, up to high

These are SkillSpector’s own severities. On a checked sample its high-severity flags on skills were ~96% false positives — a documented command, a public API, a “never do X” rule — so we show them as a caution to read, not a verdict. Why →

  • high Privilege Escalation · line 89
    Code accesses credential files (SSH keys, AWS credentials, etc.). This could indicate credential theft attempts.
    Fix: Remove references to credential paths. Use environment variables or secrets managers. For docs, use placeholder paths (e.g., /path/to/config). Never load .env or token files in production code paths.
  • high Privilege Escalation · line 24
    Code accesses credential files (SSH keys, AWS credentials, etc.). This could indicate credential theft attempts.
    Fix: Remove references to credential paths. Use environment variables or secrets managers. For docs, use placeholder paths (e.g., /path/to/config). Never load .env or token files in production code paths.
  • high Privilege Escalation · line 90
    Code accesses credential files (SSH keys, AWS credentials, etc.). This could indicate credential theft attempts.
    Fix: Remove references to credential paths. Use environment variables or secrets managers. For docs, use placeholder paths (e.g., /path/to/config). Never load .env or token files in production code paths.
  • medium Data Exfiltration · line 20
    Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.
    Fix: Verify the destination URL is trusted and necessary. Remove or replace with documented APIs. Ensure no secrets, tokens, or PII are transmitted.
  • medium Data Exfiltration · line 116
    Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.
    Fix: Verify the destination URL is trusted and necessary. Remove or replace with documented APIs. Ensure no secrets, tokens, or PII are transmitted.
  • medium Data Exfiltration · line 136
    Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.
    Fix: Verify the destination URL is trusted and necessary. Remove or replace with documented APIs. Ensure no secrets, tokens, or PII are transmitted.
  • medium Data Exfiltration · line 162
    Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.
    Fix: Verify the destination URL is trusted and necessary. Remove or replace with documented APIs. Ensure no secrets, tokens, or PII are transmitted.
  • medium Data Exfiltration · line 189
    Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.
    Fix: Verify the destination URL is trusted and necessary. Remove or replace with documented APIs. Ensure no secrets, tokens, or PII are transmitted.
  • medium Data Exfiltration · line 212
    Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.
    Fix: Verify the destination URL is trusted and necessary. Remove or replace with documented APIs. Ensure no secrets, tokens, or PII are transmitted.
  • medium Data Exfiltration · line 220
    Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.
    Fix: Verify the destination URL is trusted and necessary. Remove or replace with documented APIs. Ensure no secrets, tokens, or PII are transmitted.
  • medium Data Exfiltration · line 224
    Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.
    Fix: Verify the destination URL is trusted and necessary. Remove or replace with documented APIs. Ensure no secrets, tokens, or PII are transmitted.
  • medium Data Exfiltration · line 238
    Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.
    Fix: Verify the destination URL is trusted and necessary. Remove or replace with documented APIs. Ensure no secrets, tokens, or PII are transmitted.
  • medium Data Exfiltration · line 243
    Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.
    Fix: Verify the destination URL is trusted and necessary. Remove or replace with documented APIs. Ensure no secrets, tokens, or PII are transmitted.
  • medium Data Exfiltration · line 249
    Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.
    Fix: Verify the destination URL is trusted and necessary. Remove or replace with documented APIs. Ensure no secrets, tokens, or PII are transmitted.
  • medium Data Exfiltration · line 256
    Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.
    Fix: Verify the destination URL is trusted and necessary. Remove or replace with documented APIs. Ensure no secrets, tokens, or PII are transmitted.
  • medium Data Exfiltration · line 235
    Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.
    Fix: Verify the destination URL is trusted and necessary. Remove or replace with documented APIs. Ensure no secrets, tokens, or PII are transmitted.
  • medium Data Exfiltration · line 246
    Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.
    Fix: Verify the destination URL is trusted and necessary. Remove or replace with documented APIs. Ensure no secrets, tokens, or PII are transmitted.
How audits are shown
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00039 $0.02219
Opus 5 $0.00019 $0.01110
Sonnet 5 $0.00008 $0.00444
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00222

Measured 9d ago against content hash ac537461e827, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-09, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

accessing-github-repos scanned grade A with 1 finding against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 9d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

curl -sL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/OWNER/REPO/BRANCH/path/file"
accessing-github-repos/SKILL.md · 288 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 288 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Accessing GitHub Repositories

Git clone is blocked in containerized AI environments (egress proxy rejects CONNECT tunnel), but full repository access is available via GitHub REST API and raw file URLs.

Quick Start

Public Repos (no setup needed)

# Individual file via raw URL
curl -sL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/OWNER/REPO/BRANCH/path/file"

# Directory tree via API
curl -sL "https://api.github.com/repos/OWNER/REPO/git/trees/BRANCH?recursive=1"

Private Repos or Write Access

Requires GitHub Personal Access Token (PAT). See Setup section below.

Setup

Credential Configuration

The skill automatically detects PATs from environment variables or project files:

Environment Variables (checked in order):

  • GITHUB_PAT
  • GH_PAT
  • GITHUB_TOKEN
  • GH_TOKEN

Project Files (Claude.ai):

  • /mnt/project/.env
  • /mnt/project/github.env

Format:

GITHUB_PAT=github_pat_11AAAAAA...

Creating a GitHub PAT

  1. GitHub → Settings → Developer settings → Fine-grained tokens
  2. Create token scoped to needed repositories
  3. Set permissions:
    • Contents: Read - for private repo access
    • Contents: Write - for pushing files
    • Issues: Write - for issue management
    • Pull requests: Write - for creating PRs

Network Access (Claude.ai Projects)

Add to network allowlist:

  • api.github.com
  • raw.githubusercontent.com

Capabilities by Auth Level

Capability No PAT (public only) PAT (read) PAT (write)
Fetch public files
Fetch private files
Download tarball ✅ public
Create/update files
Create branches
Manage issues
Create PRs

Python Helper Functions

Credential Detection

import os

def get_github_auth():
    """Returns (token, source) or (None, None)"""
    # Check environment variables
    for var in ['GITHUB_PAT', 'GH_PAT', 'GITHUB_TOKEN', 'GH_TOKEN']:
        if token := os.environ.get(var):
            return token, var

    # Check project .env files
    env_paths = ['/mnt/project/.env', '/mnt/project/github.env']
    for path in env_paths:
        try:
            with open(path) as f:
                for line in f:
                    if '=' in line and not line.startswith('#'):
                        key, val = line.strip().split('=', 1)
                        if key in ['GITHUB_PAT', 'GH_PAT', 'GITHUB_TOKEN']:
                            return val.strip(), f'{path}:{key}'
        except FileNotFoundError:
            continue

    return None, None

Read the full file on GitHub · 288 lines

Files

What ships with it

1 file beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 9d ago First seen · 288 lines · 39 tokens per session scan A ac537461e827

Subscribe to this mod's changes

accessing-github-repos is a skill published in the GitHub repository oaustegard/claude-skills (147 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed MIT. It adds 39 tokens to every session and 2,219 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 1 finding (makes network calls). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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