GitHub

When you finish this page, tools in your projects can work on the repositories you picked through your company's own GitHub App, such as the ready-made tools that list issues and add labels. You create the app by hand on GitHub, register it with Kindgi once, and install it on your organization.

Before you start

• You're an admin of the workspace.
• The runtime's public address is set (KINDGI_PUBLIC_URL), and people reach the console there. This page writes it as https://kindgi.acme.com.
• You can create GitHub Apps for your organization, as one of its owners or app managers.
• The kindgi CLI reaches your runtime as you, with the runtime's address exported as KINDGI_API_URL and your API key as KINDGI_API_TOKEN (People and keys). Kindgi 0.2's CLI runs from any folder as npx --yes @kindgi/cli@0.2 (Install).

1. Create the GitHub App

On GitHub, open your organization's Settings → Developer settings → GitHub Apps → New GitHub App (GitHub: Registering a GitHub App):

• GitHub App name and Homepage URL: your choice.

• Callback URL: the console's connect page:

  https://kindgi.acme.com/console/connect/callback

• Request user authorization (OAuth) during installation: ticked. GitHub then sends whoever installs the app back to that page, and Kindgi checks the installation is theirs before it keeps it.

• Webhook: untick Active. You turn it on in step 3, with the address Kindgi gives you.

• Permissions: what your tools need, such as Repository → Issues: Read and write. For a project's repo connection, which opens a draft pull request when a block change is pinned there, add Repository → Contents: Read and write and Repository → Pull requests: Read and write. Metadata: Read-only comes with every app.

• Where can this GitHub App be installed? Only on this account. Only your organization can then install it.

Then choose Create GitHub App. On the app's page:

• note its App ID, its Client ID, and its name in the URL (github.com/apps/<slug>);
• Generate a new client secret, and keep it;
• Generate a private key. GitHub downloads it as a .pem file.

2. Store the app's secrets

Make a webhook secret for the app's notices, and keep it for step 3:

openssl rand -hex 32

Three secrets go into Kindgi's secret store under names, never into a registration or a chat:

npx --yes @kindgi/cli@0.2 secrets set ACME_GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET --env=production --scope=tenant
npx --yes @kindgi/cli@0.2 secrets set ACME_GITHUB_WEBHOOK_SECRET --env=production --scope=tenant
npx --yes @kindgi/cli@0.2 secrets set ACME_GITHUB_PRIVATE_KEY --env=production --scope=tenant --from-stdin < acme-kindgi.private-key.pem

• Each command but the last asks for the value twice, and doesn't show what you type.
• The private key comes from the file GitHub downloaded. Delete the file once it's stored.
• --env is the runtime's environment, its KINDGI_ENV, and --scope=tenant stores each secret for the whole workspace.

3. Register the app

In the console, open your workspace's App registrations page, choose Register an app, and pick GitHub as the App:

• App id, Slug and Client id: from the app's page on GitHub.
• Client secret, Private key and Webhook secret: the environment and name you stored each under in Kindgi's secrets: production/ACME_GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET, production/ACME_GITHUB_PRIVATE_KEY and production/ACME_GITHUB_WEBHOOK_SECRET.
• Which projects' runs may use it: leave it empty for all of them.

Then choose Register. Kindgi shows what to give GitHub: the Callback URL you entered in step 1, and a Webhook URL.

Or register it from the command line:

npx --yes @kindgi/cli@0.2 connection-apps add github --github-app-id=<github-app-id> --slug=<slug> --client-id=<client-id> --client-secret-ref=production/ACME_GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET --private-key-ref=production/ACME_GITHUB_PRIVATE_KEY --webhook-secret-ref=production/ACME_GITHUB_WEBHOOK_SECRET

<github-app-id> is the App ID on the app's page on GitHub, a number. The command prints the registration as JSON: its redirectUrl is the Callback URL, and its noticesUrl the Webhook URL. --projects=<project-id>,… lets only those projects' runs use it.

Back on GitHub, in the app's General settings, tick Webhook → Active, enter the address Kindgi gave you as the Webhook URL and the webhook secret from step 2 as the Secret, and save. GitHub then sends Kindgi a signed notice when the app is uninstalled or suspended (Notices from the app).

4. Install it for the company

An admin connects the app for the company. In a project, open Connections, choose Connect an app, pick GitHub, and under For choose The company. Kindgi shows Connect GitHub: choose Continue at GitHub. What GitHub shows depends on whether the app is installed yet:

• Not installed anywhere yet: GitHub asks where to install the app. Pick your organization and the repositories the tools should reach.
• Already installed: GitHub asks you to authorize the app. If your GitHub account reaches more than one of its installations, Kindgi asks you to Choose the account to connect: pick the one this connection uses, such as Use acme. If it reaches only one, Kindgi uses that one without asking.

GitHub sends you back to Kindgi, and the connection shows your organization. Kindgi keeps an installation only if your own GitHub account reaches it.

To install the app on another account, such as a second organization, choose Install on another account. Kindgi offers it on the Connect GitHub page, before you go to GitHub, and beside the installations to choose from. Once the app is installed anywhere, connecting never shows GitHub's install page by itself, so this is the way there.

• When the GitHub account you signed in with reaches none of the app's installations, or not the one you picked, Kindgi says The app isn't reachable from your GitHub account (connection-installation-unreachable). Choose Install on another account and install it on an account you manage, or ask an owner of the account it's installed on.
• When your organization makes installs wait for an owner's approval, the connect fails with connection-app-refused until an owner approves the install on GitHub. Connect again once they have.
• Only whoever started a connect can finish it, signed in to Kindgi as themselves. Anyone else sees Someone else started this sign-in (connection-not-yours).

Calls then use short-lived tokens limited to the tool's permissions, over the repositories you picked when you installed the app.

Reconnecting

If an owner of the account the app is installed on takes a permission away from it on GitHub, the next call that needs that permission finds out, and the connection needs reconnecting. Until an admin connects it again, the company's calls fail with connection-missing.

• A reconnect stays on the connection's account. Kindgi uses the app's installation there without asking, even when your GitHub account reaches several, and doesn't show the Connect GitHub page. If the app was uninstalled and installed again on that account, reconnecting picks up the new installation. If your account can't reach an installation on that account, the reconnect fails with connection-installation-unreachable. Choosing an installation on another account fails with connection-account-mismatch. To connect another account instead, disconnect, then connect again.
• A reconnect asks again for every permission the connection had, so have an owner give the app back what it lost on GitHub first. Until then the reconnect is declined, naming what's missing, and the connection still needs reconnecting. To go on with less, disconnect, then connect again for what's left.

Disconnecting

Connections → Disconnect stops Kindgi using the app at once and revokes the short-lived tokens it holds (How connections work). Connecting again later goes through GitHub's authorization and gets the same installation back, without installing it again.

It doesn't uninstall the app from your organization. The app keeps its access to the repositories you picked until you uninstall it on GitHub: your organization's Settings → GitHub Apps → Configure → Uninstall. Uninstalling it there also removes the connection in Kindgi, through the notice.