Access GitHub Private Repo in Google Colab

Authenticate with GitHub in Google Colab to access private repo.

Steps

• Run the following code inside the colab notebook.

!wget -q https://raw.githubusercontent.com/leonardschneider/colab-github/main/colab_github.py
import colab_github
colab_github.github_auth(persistent_key=True)

Note that by setting persistent_key to true, you will be asked to connect to Google Drive, so this script will store private key inside your .colab-github folder of your Google Drive. Doing so, you only need to upload your private key to Github once.

• You will see outputs like:

Please go to https://github.com/settings/ssh/new to upload the following key:  
ssh-ed25519 xxxxxxx/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx root@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Upload this public key to either your SSH settings, or your repo's Deploy Keys.

• Use SSH method to clone your private repo. Inside the notebook, you can run

!git clone git@github.com:<your_username>/<your_private_repo>.git