Skip to main content
All products
GitHub Packages

This version of GitHub Enterprise was discontinued on 2023-03-15. No patch releases will be made, even for critical security issues. For better performance, improved security, and new features, upgrade to the latest version of GitHub Enterprise. For help with the upgrade, contact GitHub Enterprise support.

Working with the NuGet registry

In this article

You can configure the dotnet command-line interface (CLI) to publish NuGet packages to GitHub Packages and to use packages stored on GitHub Packages as dependencies in a .NET project.

GitHub Packages is available with GitHub Free, GitHub Pro, GitHub Free for organizations, GitHub Team, GitHub Enterprise Cloud, GitHub Enterprise Server 3.0 or higher, and GitHub AE. For more information about upgrading your GitHub Enterprise Server instance, see "About upgrades to new releases" and refer to the Upgrade assistant to find the upgrade path from your current release version.

Note: This package type may not be available for your instance, because site administrators can enable or disable each supported package type. For more information, see "Configuring package ecosystem support for your enterprise."

Authenticating to GitHub Packages

You need an access token to publish, install, and delete private, internal, and public packages.

You can use a personal access token to authenticate to GitHub Packages or the GitHub Enterprise Server API. When you create a personal access token, you can assign the token different scopes depending on your needs. For more information about packages-related scopes for a personal access token, see "About permissions for GitHub Packages."

To authenticate to a GitHub Packages registry within a GitHub Actions workflow, you can use:

  • GITHUB_TOKEN to publish packages associated with the workflow repository.
  • a personal access token with at least read:packages scope to install packages associated with other private repositories (which GITHUB_TOKEN can't access).

Authenticating in a GitHub Actions workflow

Use the following command to authenticate to GitHub Packages in a GitHub Actions workflow using the GITHUB_TOKEN instead of hardcoding a personal access token in a nuget.config file in the repository:

dotnet nuget add source --username USERNAME --password ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }} --store-password-in-clear-text --name github "https://nuget.HOSTNAME/NAMESPACE/index.json"

Replace NAMESPACE with the name of the personal account or organization that owns the repository where your packages are hosted.

For more information about GITHUB_TOKEN used in GitHub Actions workflows, see "Automatic token authentication."

Authenticating with a personal access token

You need an access token to publish, install, and delete private, internal, and public packages.

You can use a personal access token to authenticate to GitHub Packages or the GitHub Enterprise Server API. When you create a personal access token, you can assign the token different scopes depending on your needs. For more information about packages-related scopes for a personal access token, see "About permissions for GitHub Packages."

To authenticate to a GitHub Packages registry within a GitHub Actions workflow, you can use:

  • GITHUB_TOKEN to publish packages associated with the workflow repository.
  • a personal access token with at least read:packages scope to install packages associated with other private repositories (which GITHUB_TOKEN can't access).

You must use a personal access token with the appropriate scopes to publish and install packages in GitHub Packages. For more information, see "Introduction to GitHub Packages."

To authenticate to GitHub Packages with the dotnet command-line interface (CLI), create a nuget.config file in your project directory specifying GitHub Packages as a source under packageSources for the dotnet CLI client.

You must replace:

  • USERNAME with the name of your personal account on GitHub.
  • TOKEN with your personal access token.
  • NAMESPACE with the name of the personal account or organization that owns the repository where your packages are hosted.
  • HOSTNAME with the host name for your GitHub Enterprise Server instance.

If your instance has subdomain isolation enabled:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
    <packageSources>
        <clear />
        <add key="github" value="https://nuget.HOSTNAME/NAMESPACE/index.json" />
    </packageSources>
    <packageSourceCredentials>
        <github>
            <add key="Username" value="USERNAME" />
            <add key="ClearTextPassword" value="TOKEN" />
        </github>
    </packageSourceCredentials>
</configuration>

If your instance has subdomain isolation disabled:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
    <packageSources>
        <clear />
        <add key="github" value="https://HOSTNAME/_registry/nuget/NAMESPACE/index.json" />
    </