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Is there anyway to programmatically fetch a zipball of private github repo?

We got a necessity to fetch a zipball of a private repo. For public ones it's pretty easy either through GitHub API or manually (https://github.com/user/repo/zipball/master). But what about private repos? Not exactly obvious how to do it even having oAuth token.

Solution

  • New Alternative

    Because the given accepted answer does not work anymore, I thought I would explain how I was able to do it with the new changes in the github API.

    The new Download Api Link

    First, I found information about downloading the archive here: https://developer.github.com/v3/repos/contents/#get-archive-link

    Public Repo

    If it's a public repo then it is very easy... you can do:

    curl -L https://api.github.com/repos/pengwynn/octokit/tarball > octokit.tar.gz

    Private Repo

    If it's it is a private repo, you need to create an oAuth token by going to your settings and then selecting "Developer settings" / "Personal access tokens". I created a personal token.

    Then using the instructions on the following page I found out how to get private repo that you have permission to: https://developer.github.com/v3/#authentication

    Full Code

    curl -H "Authorization: token ab499f3b..." \
-L https://api.github.com/repos/godzilla/my_priv_repo/tarball > wut.tar.gz

    Be sure to replace ab499f3b... with your actual token.