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About GitHub EMU

What is GitHub Enterprise Managed Users?

GitHub Enterprise Managed Users (EMU) is an offering built on top of GitHub Enterprise Cloud that extends the identity and security features of GitHub Enterprise Cloud. An EMU enterprise also has no concept of a public repository, so there is no risk of an EMU user accidentally exposing internal information in a public repository.

Benefits of GitHub EMU

With EMU, user accounts no longer belong to individual users, instead your account is provisioned by the VA using an approved Identity Provider such Azure Entra ID and is backed by Personal Identity Verification (PIV) cards. This means that users will be able to self-serve their access to GitHub EMU and will no longer need to seek approval to join the VA’s GitHub organization.

Unlike GitHub Enterprise Cloud, EMU accounts are not tied to a personal email address. If a user leaves the VA, their EMU account will be inaccessible the moment their PIV certificate is invalidated, or disabled the moment the email account is suspended and the user will immediately no longer have access to the VA’s GitHub organization.

In addition, EMU accounts are backed by PIV cards. This means that users will be required to use their PIV card to authenticate to GitHub. This is a more secure method of authentication than using a username and password with 2FA.

Who is eligible for EMU?

GitHub EMU will be made available to all VA users in coming weeks. There are a few restrictions however to be aware of:

  • If you have a public repository that depends on your private source code, you may not be able to migrate to EMU. This is because EMU does not support public repositories. Please reach out to the GitHub admin team via the contact us page to explore your use case.
  • If you have a repository currently hosted on VAEC GitHub and contains PII or PHI, you may not migrate to EMU. If your repository contains PII or PHI, the GitHub Expert Services team will be providing additional guidance on how to migrate your repository to EMU. Please await further guidance from the GitHub team.
  • EMU is only accessible from GFE, AVD, and CAG at this time. If you require being able to develop from your contractor laptop, you must wait for additional guidance before migrating.

How do I Get Started with EMU?

To get access to the GitHub EMU enterprise follow the Getting EMU Access guide.

For additional guidance, such as requesting access to a specific organization, use the EMU Guides page.

Return to Guides