Cant create an access token with organization access

[ryanobjc]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

Body

So I am trying to create an access token with organization access, but I can't seem to actually... select organizations I belong to.

As a side note, I am having to do this so I can auto-recreate tokens on the regular because trusted publishing is so limited in it's support!

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[Lopesnextgen]

This may be an org/enterprise policy issue, not the token form itself

I ran into something similar before, and the confusing part is that the organization dropdown is not simply "all orgs I belong to".

For fine-grained PATs, GitHub only shows organizations that can actually be selected as the token's resource owner. If an organization or enterprise has blocked fine-grained PAT access, that org may not appear in the selector at all.

A few things I would check:

• Whether the organization allows fine-grained personal access tokens
• Whether the enterprise has a policy restricting PATs globally
• Whether the org requires owner approval for fine-grained PATs
• Whether SAML/SSO is involved
• Whether you are a real org member vs only an outside collaborator on repos
• Whether you are trying to create one token for multiple orgs, because fine-grained PATs are scoped to one resource owner

The UI could definitely explain this better. Right now it can feel like GitHub is just failing to load organizations, when the real reason might be policy/permission related.

For the auto-rotation side

I would be careful with a workflow that depends on repeatedly recreating PATs. PATs are pretty awkward for machine automation, especially when org approval, SSO, expiration policies, and fine-grained limitations get involved.

If this is for automation, a GitHub App installation token is usually a better fit than a user-owned PAT:

• short-lived tokens
• no human account dependency
• permissions are clearer
• easier to audit
• better suited for org-level automation

That said, I agree with your point about trusted publishing. It is great where supported, but the support matrix still has gaps, and those gaps push people back toward long-lived or manually rotated tokens.

So I would not call this solved just by saying "use trusted publishing". GitHub should probably make the PAT creation page clearer when an org is hidden because of policy, and ideally show something like:

This organization cannot be selected because fine-grained PATs are disabled by organization or enterprise policy.

That would save a lot of guessing.