Working with push protection in the GitHub UI

About push protection in the GitHub UI

When you create or edit files from the GitHub UI, push protection prevents you from accidentally committing secrets to a repository by blocking commits containing supported secrets.

GitHub will also block the commit if you attempt to upload files containing supported secrets.

You should either:

• Remove the secret from the commit. For more information, see "Resolving a blocked commit."
• Review the instructions in the dialog box to allow the push. For more information, see "Bypassing push protection."

GitHub will only display one detected secret at a time in the web UI. If a particular secret has already been detected in the repository and an alert already exists, GitHub will not block that secret.

Organization owners can provide a custom link that will be displayed when a push is blocked. This custom link can contain resources and advice specific to your organization. For example, the custom link can point to a README file with information about the organization's secret vault, which teams and individuals to escalate questions to, or the organization's approved policy for working with secrets and rewriting commit history.

Resolving a blocked commit

When you use the web UI to attempt to commit a supported secret to a repository secured by push protection, GitHub will block the commit.

You will see a dialog box with information about the secret's location, as well as options allowing you to push the secret. The secret will also be underlined in the file so you can easily find it.

To resolve a blocked commit in the web UI, you need to remove the secret from the file. Once you remove the secret, you will be able to commit your changes.

Bypassing push protection

If GitHub blocks a secret that you believe is safe to commit, you can bypass the block by specifying a reason for allowing the secret.

When you allow a secret to be pushed, an alert is created in the Security tab. GitHub closes the alert and doesn't send a notification if you specify that the secret is a false positive or used only in tests. If you specify that the secret is real and that you will fix it later, GitHub keeps the security alert open and sends notifications to the author of the commit, as well as to repository administrators. For more information, see "Managing alerts from secret scanning."

When a contributor bypasses a push protection block for a secret, GitHub also sends an email alert to the organization owners, security managers, and repository administrators who have opted in for email notifications.

1. In dialog box that appeared when GitHub blocked your commit, review the name and location of the secret.

2. Choose the option that best describes why you should be able to push the secret.

   • If the secret is only used in tests and poses no threat, click It's used in tests.
   • If the detected string is not a secret, click It's a false positive.
   • If the secret is real but you intend to fix it later, click I'll fix it later.

   Note: You are required to specify a reason for bypassing push protection if the repository has secret scanning enabled.

   When pushing to a public repository that doesn't have secret scanning enabled, you are still protected from accidentally pushing secrets thanks to push protection for users, which is on by default for your user account.

   With push protection for users, GitHub will automatically block pushes to public repositories if these pushes contain supported secrets, but you won't need to specify a reason for allowing the secret, and GitHub won't generate an alert. For more information, see "Push protection for users."

3. Click Allow secret.

Further reading

• Working with push protection from the command line
• Working with push protection from the REST API