Setting Up Git Credentials

Ileen needs write access to your GitHub repositories to push code and manage pull requests. This guide covers how to create and configure a GitHub Personal Access Token (PAT).

Applies to: Design Mode (Developer Setup) · Develop Mode (Project Setup) · Deploy Mode (fix-and-redeploy)

Note

Ileen currently supports GitHub only. The full agentic workflow — code generation, pull request creation, approval, and merge — relies on the GitHub REST API. GitLab, Bitbucket, and other hosts are not supported.

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Required permissions

Ileen only needs access to repository content. It does not need organisation admin, CI/CD, or webhook permissions.

Permission	Access
Metadata	Read
Contents (code)	Read and Write
Commit statuses	Read and Write
Merge queues	Read and Write
Pull requests	Read and Write

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GitHub — create a fine-grained PAT

GitHub’s fine-grained personal access tokens let you grant exactly the permissions above, scoped to specific repositories.

1. Go to GitHub → Settings → Developer settings → Personal access tokens → Fine-grained tokens.
2. Click Generate new token.
3. Give it a name (e.g. Ileen) and set an expiry (90 days is a reasonable default).
4. Under Repository access, select Only select repositories and choose the repos you’ll connect to Ileen.
5. Under Repository permissions, set:
   • Contents → Read and Write
   • Commit statuses → Read and Write
   • Merge queues → Read and Write
   • Pull requests → Read and Write
   • Metadata is set to Read automatically.
6. Click Generate token and copy it immediately — it won’t be shown again.

Tip

If your organisation uses SSO (SAML), you must also authorise the token for your organisation: click Configure SSO next to the token after creating it.

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Entering credentials in Ileen

Design Mode — Developer Setup

When you reach Stage 4 (Development) in Design Mode, the Developer Setup screen lists every repository defined by the Tech Leader. For each one:

1. Enter the repository HTTPS URL (e.g. https://github.com/acme/ecommerce-api).
2. Enter the Personal Access Token.
3. Choose the base branch (defaults to main).

Shared token: When the project has more than one repository, the Developer Setup screen shows a “Shared Access Token (optional)” field at the top. Enter your PAT there and it will be used for every repo that doesn’t have its own token below — you only need to enter it once.

Caution

Repositories must be empty before Ileen connects to them. Ileen pushes the initial commit, folder structure, and boilerplate. If the repository already has content, the push will fail.

Develop Mode — Project Setup

Develop Mode connects to one or more existing repositories:

1. Enter the repository URL.
2. Choose the base branch (the branch Ileen will read and commit to).
3. Enter the PAT if the repository is private.
4. Click Create Project.

Deploy Mode — fix-and-redeploy commits

Deploy Mode also uses your Git PAT when the Deploy Agent applies code fixes during a fix-and-redeploy cycle. When a deployment fails and the agent repairs the code, it commits the change and pushes it to the configured branch before triggering a new build.

No extra configuration is needed — the same PAT you entered in Developer Setup is reused automatically. Make sure it has Contents: Read and Write permission on every repository in the project (see the Required permissions table above).

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Token security

• Tokens are encrypted at rest and in transit.
• They are used only during active coding jobs and deployment runs.
• Tokens are never included in logs or error messages.
• Revoke a token at any time from GitHub’s token settings without affecting other Ileen functionality.

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Troubleshooting

Error	Likely cause	Fix
Authentication failed	Wrong token or expired	Regenerate the token and update it in Ileen
Repository not found	URL typo or PAT has no access to the repo	Check the URL and token scopes
Push rejected: non-empty repository	Repo already has content	Create a new empty repository
SSO required	GitHub SAML org requires SSO authorisation	Authorise the token for the org (see GitHub tip above)

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Next steps

• Tutorial 01: Design Mode — full walkthrough including Git setup
• Tutorial 02: Develop Mode — connecting an existing repository