diff --git a/internal/providers/github/common.go b/internal/providers/github/common.go
index a0c8fa8e99..0d2611baeb 100644
--- a/internal/providers/github/common.go
+++ b/internal/providers/github/common.go
@@ -59,6 +59,8 @@ var (
 	ErrNotFound = errors.New("not found")
 	// ErrBranchNotFound denotes if the branch was not found
 	ErrBranchNotFound = errors.New("branch not found")
+	// ErrNoPackageListingClient denotes if there is no package listing client available
+	ErrNoPackageListingClient = errors.New("no package listing client available")
 )
 
 // GitHub is the struct that contains the shared GitHub client operations
@@ -171,6 +173,11 @@ func (c *GitHub) ListPackagesByRepository(
 	// create a slice to hold the containers
 	var allContainers []*github.Package
 
+	if c.packageListingClient == nil {
+		zerolog.Ctx(ctx).Error().Msg("No client available for listing packages")
+		return allContainers, ErrNoPackageListingClient
+	}
+
 	type listPackagesRespWrapper struct {
 		artifacts []*github.Package
 		resp      *github.Response
@@ -205,7 +212,7 @@ func (c *GitHub) ListPackagesByRepository(
 	for {
 		result, err := performWithRetry(ctx, op)
 		if err != nil {
-			if result.resp.StatusCode == http.StatusNotFound {
+			if result.resp != nil && result.resp.StatusCode == http.StatusNotFound {
 				return allContainers, fmt.Errorf("packages not found for repository %d: %w", repositoryId, ErrNotFound)
 			}
 
diff --git a/internal/reconcilers/repository.go b/internal/reconcilers/repository.go
index 59dd51c0c3..6ab77a8927 100644
--- a/internal/reconcilers/repository.go
+++ b/internal/reconcilers/repository.go
@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@ import (
 	"github.com/ThreeDotsLabs/watermill/message"
 	"github.com/go-playground/validator/v10"
 	"github.com/google/uuid"
+	"github.com/rs/zerolog"
 	"github.com/rs/zerolog/log"
 	"google.golang.org/protobuf/types/known/timestamppb"
 
@@ -137,6 +138,13 @@ func (r *Reconciler) handleArtifactsReconcilerEvent(ctx context.Context, evt *Re
 			// we do not return error since it's a valid use case for a repository to not have artifacts
 			log.Printf("error retrieving artifacts for RepoID %d: %v", repository.RepoID, err)
 			return nil
+		} else if errors.Is(err, github.ErrNoPackageListingClient) {
+			// not a hard error, just misconfiguration or the user doesn't want to put a token
+			// into the provider config
+			zerolog.Ctx(ctx).Info().
+				Str("provider", prov.ID.String()).
+				Msg("No package listing client available for provider")
+			return nil
 		}
 		return err
 	}