GitHub Handbook
While service accounts are supported we strongly encourage teams to use GitHub Apps where possible. There are numerous benefits to using GitHub Apps instead of service accounts, both in ease of use and security. See the Using GitHub Apps guide for more information.
Creating a Service Account
Service accounts, otherwise known as bot accounts, are used to automate tasks or provide shared credentials for GitHub. Users may create a service account by requesting that an Active Directory Distribution Group be created for the team with each user who needs access to the service account added to the distribution group.
You can create an AD Distribution Group by opening a New Distribution Group request in ServiceNow.
Once the distributions group is created, you will need to enable email functionality for your Distribution Group by creating an Email Permissions request in ServiceNow requesting that email functionality be enabled.
After that request is complete you may create a GitHub account using the distribution group’s email address by visiting the GitHub Sign Up Page. Once the account is created, you may verify the va.gov email address you created the account with by following the instructions in the Verify Email documentation.
Once the accounts email has been verified, you may add the account to the Department of Veterans Affairs organization by following the standard instructions to add a user to the Department of Veterans Affairs organization on GitHub, which are available in the Adding Users Guide.
Note: Service accounts are governed by the
30-day Inactivity Policy and will be removed from the
Department of Veterans Affairs organization if they are inactive for 30 days. To prevent this from happening you may add
the service account to the
service-accounts.json file
in the .github-internal repository.