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Warning

The github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs organization is being sunset and all users and repositories are migrating to va.ghe.com (GHEC-US). See migrations for more information.

Requesting Access to GitHub Enterprise Cloud

As of March 20, 2026, automated onboarding to the VA github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs organization has been disabled. Onboarding is disabled to align with the migration to va.ghe.com. Teams that have received migration deadline exemptions can submit a support request to onboard new users manually.

VA policy now requires all VA GitHub users to have a va.gov account and to have their va.gov email address verified on their GitHub user account. When submitting the support request, include the following information:

  1. The user’s GitHub.com username and va.gov email address
  2. Justification for onboarding the new user
  3. Your team’s migration timeline
  4. Your federal lead

Requests will be forwarded to the VA GitHub system owner for approval.

There are several steps that must be done to gain access to the Department of Veterans Affairs organization:

Step 1: GitHub.com Account

If you do not already have a GitHub.com account, please follow the steps outlined below.

If you already have a GitHub.com account, please add and/or verify you have done the following and proceed to Step 2: 2-Factor Authentication:

  • Verify your va.gov email address on your GitHub profile emails. All users must have access to their va.gov email account to be onboarded to the VA GitHub organization.
  • Add your human-readable name to your GitHub profile.

If you will be contributing to public repositories in the VA organization then you will need to ensure that your va.gov email address is hidden from public view. See our discussion post on the subject for instructions.

If you don’t yet have a GitHub.com account, follow the official instructions in the GitHub Documentation to create a new GitHub.com account and verify your va.gov email address on the account.

Note: If you receive a notice that your email is already in use, but you don’t already have a GitHub.com account, this is likely because your “@va.gov” email address is already in use in the VA’s Enterprise Managed Users instance. To create a new account on GitHub.com, you will need to request an email alias from the Active Directory team by opening an issue in YourIT. Follow our guide here on how to request an email alias: Requesting an Email Alias. Once you have an email alias, use that email address to create a new GitHub.com account.

Step 2: 2-Factor Authentication

For the VA, you must set up Two-Factor Authentication on your GitHub.com account prior to joining the Department of Veterans Affairs organization on GitHub.com. To get this set up, please follow the instructions below.

If you already have a GitHub.com account and have 2FA set up, please proceed to Step3: Requesting access to the Department of Veterans Affairs Organization.

If you don’t yet have a GitHub.com account and have 2FA set up, follow the official instructions in the GitHub Documentation to configure 2FA.

Step 3: Access to the Department of Veterans Affairs Organization

Once you have your GitHub.com account and have set up 2FA, you will need to request access to the Department of Veterans Affairs organization.

As of March 20 2026, access must be requested manually by an existing Department of Veterans Affairs organization user by submitting a support request.

These requests will only be approved for teams that have received a migration deadline exemption.

Once you have received your invitation, proceed to Step 4: Accepting the Invitation.

Step 4: Accepting the Invitation

Once you have requested access, you will receive an email from GitHub.com to accept the invitation to the Department of Veterans Affairs organization. Please follow the steps below to complete this.

Accepting your invitation to the organization

To accept your invitation to the Department of Veterans Affairs organization within GitHub.com:

  1. Open the invitation email you received. It could be located in your Inbox, External box, Spam/Junk Invitation email

  2. Click on the “Join @…” link in the body of the email

    invitation link

  3. If you cannot find the invitation in your email, you can navigate directly to the organization’s page and select “View invitation”

    Org view of invitation

  4. Select “Join …” for the organization want to join.

    join link

  5. You have now joined the organization and can be added to repositories and teams by the repository administrators.

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