GitHub

The GitHub connector clones a repository and has the AI explore it, reading the file tree, build files, IaC, and source, to map it to objects and associations in your workspace, classified against your account’s Metamodel. It also extracts deterministic identity signals (built container images, IaC-declared resource names) so code-derived Application objects can be linked to the cloud resources that run them. See Connectors for the general workflow.

Prerequisites

• The repository URL.
• For private repositories: a GitHub Personal Access Token (PAT) that can read the repository’s contents. Public repositories need no authentication.

Creating a Personal Access Token

ArchNGN uses the token only to clone the repository over HTTPS, so grant the minimum read access:

Fine-grained token (recommended)

1. In GitHub, go to Settings → Developer settings → Personal access tokens → Fine-grained tokens.
2. Click Generate new token.
3. Under Repository access, select Only select repositories and choose the repository to connect.
4. Under Permissions → Repository permissions, set Contents to Read-only. Leave everything else at No access.
5. Generate the token and copy it. GitHub shows it only once.

Classic token

1. Go to Settings → Developer settings → Personal access tokens → Tokens (classic).
2. Click Generate new token (classic).
3. Select the repo scope (classic tokens cannot scope read-only or per-repository, so prefer a fine-grained token).
4. Generate and copy the token.

For organisation-owned repositories, an organisation admin may need to approve fine-grained token access, or enable SSO authorisation for classic tokens.

Configuration

Field	Value
Repository Link	The full repository URL, e.g. https://github.com/acme/payments-service
Authentication	The PAT, for private repositories. Leave blank for public ones.

To scan a specific branch or subdirectory, paste a URL in GitHub’s tree form:

https://github.com/acme/monorepo/tree/develop/services/payments

This clones the develop branch and scopes the analysis to services/payments. Without a /tree/... segment the default branch is cloned and the whole repository is analysed.

The PAT is stored as an encrypted secret and used only during connector runs. It is never shown again. Re-open the connector and type a new value to rotate it.

What a Run Produces

• Objects: Applications, Components, Application Services, and the Technology and Data elements the code evidences.
• Associations: relationships between them, validated against your metamodel.
• Reference Library links: objects are connected to the governance items that apply to them.
• Cross-layer identity signals: used to link Application objects to as-built cloud objects discovered by the AWS Cloud, Azure Cloud, or GCP Cloud connectors.