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Introducing support for multiple GitHub accounts on a single host within the CLI! Log in with your work and personal accounts to manage your projects, wherever they're happening.

To add multiple accounts in the CLI, use the gh auth login command just as before. Now, instead of replacing your previous account, you will see the addition of a new account under gh auth status. This account will be marked as active, to indicate that gh will use it when communicating with GitHub. Run gh auth switch to change the active account, or gh auth logout to remove an account. Further details can be found in the v2.40.0 release notes.

Install or update the GitHub CLI today from your preferred source.

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GitHub Enterprise Cloud customers that use Enterprise Managed Users (EMUs) can now participate in a public beta for a new user role that has restricted visibility of internal repositories. The guest collaborator role is defined via SCIM and assigned to users by the identity provider. Guest collaborators helps companies who work with contractors and other short-term partners in a flexible and managed fashion on specific projects, while also sharing code and ideas without restrictions amongst full enterprise members. When a guest collaborator is added to an organization they will only receive access to internal visibility repositories within that organization.

add a guest collaborator

Learn more about guest collaborators.

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GitHub.com now remembers multiple accounts in your browser. You can find the account switcher in your profile picture context menu, letting you more easily switch between user accounts without re-entering your credentials.

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The account switcher helps developers alternate between Enterprise Managed User accounts provided by an employer and personal accounts for use with personal projects and open source contributions. It also helps administrators manage service accounts they use for automation and integration purposes.

Because these accounts often have significantly different privileges, there's never any mixing of user permissions between saved accounts. When you visit a page that your current account can't access, you'll see a prompt to switch accounts if you have more than one signed in.

When you switch accounts, you won't need to sign in again or perform 2FA unless the account session has expired. Session expiration occurs after two weeks without activity. SAML/OIDC SSO authorization is also saved for sessions, but often expires every 1 or 24 hours, and may need to be done again before you can access your organization resources.

To learn more, see "Switching between accounts".

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Users who are not part of the mandatory 2FA program will now be added to it within 24 hours of creating their first release. In August we expanded the 2FA requirement to include most GitHub.com users that had created a release. Those groups have now completed their 2FA enrollment, but additional developers have since created their first release. They will be added to the 2FA program in the coming days, as will more users over time as they create releases.

Enterprise or organization administrators can learn more about their users' current 2FA requirements by visiting the People page for their enterprise or organization.

To learn more about the 2FA program, see our May 2023 blog post, as well as the “About the mandatory 2FA program” documentation.

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Announcing changes to permissions for packages.

We are restricting the refs REST API endpoint from accepting POSTs from users and apps that only have the permission to read and write packages. Previously, this endpoint accepted updates to both tags and branches.

If that ability is critical to your development flows you will now be required to add explicit contents permissions to create refs.

A small cohort of customers relying on this flow have been notified of these changes and will have additional time to remediate.

We appreciate your feedback in GitHub's public feedback discussions.

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Passkeys are a replacement for passwords when signing in, providing higher security, ease-of-use, and loss-protection. They are now generally available on GitHub.com for all users. By using a passkey you no longer need to enter a password, or even your username, when you sign in – nor do you need to perform 2FA, if you have 2FA enabled on your account. This is because passkeys validate your identity, as well as possession of a device, so they count as two authentication factors in one. Once enrolled, you can register a brand new passkey and upgrade many security keys to passkeys.

Screenshot of the security key upgrade prompt, asking the user if they'd like to upgrade a security key called 'fingerprint' to a passkey.

To learn more, check out our documentation "About passkeys", as well as this previous blog post from the passkeys beta announcement. If you have any feedback, please drop us a note in our public discussion – we're excited for this advance in account security, and would love to understand how we can make it better for you.

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Now generally available, GitHub Enterprise Cloud customers with enterprise managed users (EMU) can integrate with Ping Federate as a formally supported SSO and SCIM identity provider. To get started, download the Ping Federate "GitHub EMU Connector 1.0" from the add-ons tab on the download page, under the "SaaS Connectors" heading. Add the connector to your Ping Federate installation and consult the Ping Federate documentation in addition to GitHub's SAML SSO and SCIM documentation for configuration.

The Ping Identity logo

The "GitHub EMU Connector" is maintained and supported by our partner, Ping Identity. Ping additionally maintains their own release notes for this connector.

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Users with two-factor authentication enabled can now begin the account recovery process from the password reset flow. Previously, the account password was needed to access 2FA account recovery, but passwords on 2FA-enabled accounts could only be reset with a valid second factor. If you lost your password and all of your second factors, you were locked out because you could not access account recovery. With this change, a user can recover their account as long as they can perform email verification and provide a recovery factor, such as an SSH key, PAT, or previously signed in device.

Once you have performed email verification and provided a recovery factor, your recovery will be manually reviewed by GitHub's support team, who will email you within three business days. If your request is approved, you'll receive a link that lets you disable 2FA on your account. After that, you can reset your password and regain access to your account.

For more information about two-factor authentication, see "About two-factor authentication". For account recovery details, see "Recovering your account if you lose your 2FA credentials".

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Banner announcing multiple account support on GitHub mobile, showing multiple avatars within the account switcher

Introducing support for multiple GitHub accounts within GitHub Mobile! Log in with your work and personal accounts to stay in touch with your projects, wherever they're happening.

To add multiple accounts to GitHub Mobile, either navigate to Profile > Settings > Accounts, or long-press on the Profile tab to get to the account switcher. See the number of unread notifications across each account, swap to another account, or sign in or out of accounts.

Receive push notifications for each account, with just the right amount of context to keep you focused on the work that matters. Keep your data separate between each account, ensuring the right accounts are active when viewing private content.

Download or update GitHub Mobile today from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store to get started.


Learn more about GitHub Mobile and share your feedback to help us improve.

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The administrator account (ending in _admin) of Enterprise Managed User enterprises is now required to enter sudo mode before taking sensitive actions. As with standard user accounts, the administrator must provide their password or a second factor credential to enter sudo mode.

Sudo mode is a GitHub security feature that validates the user's session before they perform a sensitive action, like creating a personal access token, deleting an organization, or updating their credentials.

Until now this mode was disabled for all Enterprise Managed Users (EMUs), as they had no credentials on GitHub.com and therefore could not provide one for the sudo mode prompt. As a result, EMU accounts are able to take sensitive actions without being asked for a credential. However, the admin for the EMU enterprise does have credentials on GitHub.com and will now be asked for them before taking sensitive actions.

For more information about sudo mode, see "Sudo mode". To learn more about Enterprise Managed Users, see "About Enterprise Managed Users".

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Passkeys are a replacement for passwords when signing in, providing higher security, ease-of-use, and loss-protection. They're now available on GitHub.com as a public beta – see this blog post for more information.

This public beta is open to all users with a password, regardless of whether you use 2FA. To get started, enable passkeys as a feature preview.

By using passkeys, you no longer need to enter a password, or even your username, when you sign in – nor do you need to perform 2FA, if you have 2FA enabled on your account. That's because passkeys validate your identity, as well as possession of a device, so they count as two authentication factors in one.

Once enrolled, you can register a brand new passkey and upgrade many security keys to a passkey. If you're enrolled in the preview, the next time you use an eligible security key you'll be asked to upgrade it.
Screenshot of the security key upgrade prompt, asking the user if they'd like to upgrade a security key called 'fingerprint' to a passkey.

To learn more, check out this blog post about passkeys, as well as "About passkeys" in our documentation. If you have any feedback, please drop us a note in our public discussion – we're excited for this advance in account security, and would love to understand how we can make it better for you.

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During two-factor authentication and when entering sudo mode for sensitive actions on GitHub.com, TOTP codes could be successfully used multiple times within their validity window. To improve security, this reuse is no longer allowed on GitHub.com, and will be updated in GHES with version 3.10.

Systems that have attempted to script the login flow, across multiple parallel jobs, may break as a result of this change.

Learn more about two-factor authentication with TOTP.

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In late 2022 we launched a private beta of innersource restricted users allowing customers with enterprise managed users (EMU) to assign an IdP-defined role to users who should not be granted access to internal repositories in any organization they are not expressly a member. We have made improvements to align product behavior with beta customer feedback and are updating the feature name to "guest collaborators" to better reflect the expected use cases. Guest collaborators are distinct from outside collaborators because they are always IdP-defined users intended to be fully managed within an enterprise's security boundary.

Existing private beta customers will see visual changes reflecting the transition from "restricted users" to "guest collaborators" over the coming days. We have also submitted Azure AD and Okta app changes to support a "guest collaborator" role to replace "restricted user". While the guest collaborators feature remains in private beta, we are working toward an upcoming public beta release adding the ability to selectively add guest collaborators to individual repositories without granting organization membership. At public beta release, we will have more information on how to transition your existing app integration without any breaking change.

We are still accepting private beta enrollments for customers if you would like to test the existing capabilities of the feature. Please reach out to your account team or contact our sales team for more details.

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GitHub Enterprise Cloud customers with enterprise managed users (EMU) can now integrate with Ping Federate as a formally supported SSO and SCIM identity provider in public beta. To get started, download the Ping Federate "GitHub EMU Connector 1.0" from the add-ons tab on the download page, under the "SaaS Connectors" heading. Add the connector to your Ping Federate installation and consult the Ping Federate documentation in addition to GitHub's SAML SSO and SCIM documentation for configuration.

PIC-Square-Logo-Primary

The "GitHub EMU Connector" is maintained and supported by our partner, Ping Identity. Ping additionally maintains their own release notes for this connector.

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The option to use SMS on the sudo page on GitHub.com has been removed. Users can still use other 2FA methods as well as their password to pass the sudo check and take sensitive actions. If your account only has SMS as its 2FA method, you can visit your security settings to enable additional methods such as security keys and TOTP, as well as installing the GitHub Mobile app.

To learn more about the GitHub.com sudo prompt, see "Sudo mode". For details about setting up additional 2FA methods, see "Configuring two-factor authentication".

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You can now set up both SMS and an authenticator app (TOTP) for two-factor authentication on your GitHub.com account. Previously these methods were mutually exclusive, and you needed to create a "fallback" SMS registration that could be used for account recovery.

2FA settings page showing both authenticator app and SMS registered

With this update, we are removing the fallback SMS option, and will migrate all fallback SMS registrations to be standard 2FA methods today. A small set of users had both a primary and fallback SMS registration on their account – they continue to have that fallback SMS registration, and will receive email about it today.

To learn more about setting up 2FA and GitHub's account recovery methods, see "Configuring 2FA" and "Configuring 2fa recovery methods"

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The Primary field on two-factor authentication methods has been removed, and replaced with a Preferred option. This new option sets your preferred 2FA method for account login and use of the sudo prompt. You can choose between TOTP, SMS, security keys, or GitHub Mobile as your preferred 2FA method.

Additionally, you can now update your 2FA methods inline at https://github.com/settings/security, rather than going through the initial 2FA setup flow again.

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With this change, device-specific preferences for 2FA have been removed – each login will always default to your preferred method. If you previously set a default on one of your devices, your most recent choice has been copied to your account-wide preference. Otherwise, no preference will be set, and GitHub will select from your available second factors in this order: security keys, GitHub Mobile, TOTP, and then SMS.

To learn more, see "Changing your preferred two-factor authentication method" and "Configuring two-factor authentication".

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You can now unlink your email address from a two-factor enabled GitHub account in case you’re unable to sign into it or recover it. When the worst occurs, and a user is unable to find an SSH key, PAT, or a device that’s been previously signed into GitHub in order to recover their account, they may want to start fresh with a new GitHub.com account. Since accounts on GitHub are required to each have a unique email address, though, locked out users can have difficulty starting a new account using their preferred email address.

In the 2FA recovery flow, a new option is presented at the bottom of the page, which will allow a user to remove their email address from a GitHub account:

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Selecting this option will send emails to each of the addresses on file for the account, each one containing a unique link. Following the link will remove the respective email address from the GitHub account, making it available again for a new account.

For more information, see Unlinking your email from a locked account.

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GitHub.com users who set up two-factor authentication will see a prompt after 28 days, asking them to perform 2FA and confirm their second factor settings. This prompt helps avoid account lockout due to misconfigured authenticator applications (TOTP apps), especially those that failed to save the TOTP secret after validating it during set up.

This prompt appears in existing sessions if you haven't already performed 2FA as part of a sudo prompt or signing in on another device. If you find that you can't perform 2FA, you'll be presented with a shortcut that allows you to reset your 2FA setup.

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All users that enable 2FA will be eligible for this prompt, including users required to enable it by their organization or GitHub itself.

To learn more about two-factor authentication, see "Configuring two-factor authentication".

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