Linking GitHub as a source

The GitHub connector syncs your repository data – issues, pull requests, commits, and more – into PostHog, so you can analyze engineering activity alongside your product data. You can sync multiple repositories in a single source.

Prerequisites

You need access to the GitHub repositories you want to sync. You can authenticate using OAuth (recommended), which connects your GitHub account automatically, or with a personal access token.

Adding a data source

1. In PostHog, go to the Sources tab of the data pipeline section.
2. Click + New source and click Link next to this source.
3. Enter your credentials (see Configuration below) and click Next.
4. Select the tables you want to sync, choose a sync method and frequency, then click Import.

Once the syncs are complete, you can start querying this data in PostHog.

When linking GitHub, choose an Authentication type:

• OAuth (GitHub App) – the default and recommended method. Select your GitHub account and follow the prompts to connect it. This handles authentication automatically.
• Personal access token – create a token in your GitHub Settings under Developer settings > Personal access tokens, then paste it into PostHog.

Then select the Repositories you want to sync. You can add up to 100 repositories per source.

• With OAuth, PostHog lists the repositories available to your connected GitHub App installation. Use the search field to filter.
• With a personal access token, type each repository in owner/repo format (e.g. posthog/posthog) and press Enter.

Table naming

PostHog creates a table for each repository and endpoint combination. Table names follow the pattern github_owner_repo__endpoint. For example, syncing posthog/posthog produces tables like github_posthog_posthog__issues and github_posthog_posthog__pull_requests.

Sync modes

Each table can be synced in one of several modes, depending on what the source supports:

• Webhook (when available) – the source pushes changes to PostHog in real time. Fastest freshness, lowest ongoing cost, and the only mode that reliably captures updates and deletes.
• Incremental – only new or updated rows are synced on each run, using a cursor field (such as an updated_at timestamp). Cheaper than a full refresh, but deletes aren't captured.
• Append only – new rows are appended using a cursor field; existing rows are never updated. Ideal for immutable, append-only tables like event logs.
• Full refresh – the whole table is reloaded on every sync. Use it when a table has no reliable cursor or when you need deletions reflected.

See sync methods for a full explanation of how each mode works and how to choose between them.

Webhooks

The workflow runs and workflow jobs tables can be kept up to date in real time using GitHub webhooks, rather than re-polling. PostHog creates one webhook per repository, all sharing the same signing secret. If automatic creation fails, your token needs webhook permissions – the admin:repo_hook scope on a classic token, or Repository webhooks: read and write on a fine-grained token – or you can set the webhooks up manually.

Repeat the following steps for each repository, using the same Secret every time:

1. Go to the repository's Settings > Webhooks on GitHub
2. Click Add webhook
3. Paste the webhook URL shown during setup into the Payload URL field
4. Set Content type to application/json
5. Enter a Secret and add the same value to the Signing secret field in PostHog
6. Under Which events would you like to trigger this webhook?, choose Let me select individual events and tick Workflow jobs and Workflow runs
7. Click Add webhook

Configuration

Supported tables

The tables available from this source are discovered from your account when you connect it, so the exact list depends on your data. Once connected, you can pick which tables to sync from the sources tab.

Troubleshooting

If your sync is failing or data looks wrong, see the Data warehouse troubleshooting guide. If that doesn't help, contact support – we're happy to help.