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Warning

Migrations are coming to VA GitHub. See the Migrations section for more information.

About GitHub Enterprise Cloud - US

What is GitHub Enterprise Cloud - US?

GitHub Enterprise Cloud - US (GHEC-US) is a new, centralized GitHub Enterprise Cloud environment authorized to operate at the VA Moderate level. It enables agency-wide collaboration by providing a secure, modern software development platform for all VA teams in a single GitHub instance.

GHEC-US is an enterprise SaaS solution that provides data residency in the United States and delivers the same core capabilities, performance guarantees, and site reliability as GitHub.com. It includes features like high availability, real-time monitoring, zero-downtime updates, and industry-standard incident response.

Benefits of GHEC-US

  • Moderate Authorization: GHEC-US meets the security and compliance needs of the VA by implementing VA Moderate standards, enabling development of systems handling sensitive but unclassified data.

  • Single GitHub Instance Across the Agency: No more choosing between multiple GitHub environments—GHEC-US consolidates VA development efforts into a single platform, simplifying onboarding, collaboration, and code management.

  • Enterprise-Grade SaaS with U.S. Data Residency: GHEC-US leverages GitHub’s Enterprise Cloud infrastructure with guarantees around performance, reliability, and data residency, ensuring alignment with VA operational needs. GHEC-US is an instance of GitHub Enterprise Cloud with Data Residency located in the US, ensuring US Data Residency for VA data and workflows.

  • Improved Collaboration and Discoverability: Centralizing projects from across the enterprise improves code reuse and visibility across teams, reduces duplication of effort, and promotes best practices in secure, open development.

Who is Eligible for GHEC-US?

GHEC-US is being rolled out agency-wide and will be available to all VA development teams. Please note a few important eligibility and access considerations:

  • New projects, with no dependencies. Teams starting new projects, should go ahead and start fresh in GHEC-US, as long as they do not have any dependencies in other environments.

  • GitHub.com repositories are migrating between September 15, 2025 and March 31, 2026. Teams should be actively planning their migrations if they have not already migrated, and completing the GitHub migration survey to share their migration timeline and dependencies.

    Note: this includes teams with public repositories. There have been numerous exposures of sensitive and controlled VA information, such as encryption keys, passwords, and API tokens, from public repositories. This will improve the VA’s security posture and better protect the Veterans the VA serves. Public repositories will either become internal or private.

  • GitHub.ec.va.gov repositories are migrating between March 1, 2026 and August 31, 2026. Teams should be considering migration efforts in their plans for the upcoming year.

    Note: any repositories which contain Personally Identifiable Information/Protected Health Information (PII/PHI) must be sanitized to adequately protect PII/PHI. Only fictional PII/PHI used for test-cases can be stored in a repository. VA GitHub systems are only authorized to process and store PII related to GitHub user accounts. There is no authorization for processing or storing PHI.

How do I Get Started with GHEC-US?

To get access to GHEC-US follow the Getting GHEC-US Access guide. Users from existing GitHub environments are being auto-onboarded to GHEC-US as migrations become available for your environment, but you can use these instructions to get access to GHEC-US now.

Once onboarded you will have access to the GHEC-US Handbook. The GHEC-US Handbook is private to GHEC-US users, so you must be onboarded to GHEC-US to have access to it.