Connect GitHub
This is not the same thing as signing in with GitHub
Section titled “This is not the same thing as signing in with GitHub”Two different things carry the same word, and it is worth separating them before anything else on this page:
- Signing in with GitHub authenticates you to the Nodrik console, instead of a password or a Google account. It reads your GitHub account’s email address so we know who you are, and nothing else — no repository, no organisation, no code. See Sign up.
- Connecting GitHub, the rest of this page, installs Nodrik’s GitHub App on repositories you pick, so an investigation can name the commit behind a deploy. It authenticates as itself, not as you, and it keeps working when you are asleep.
They are two separate registrations on GitHub’s side, with separate secrets, and neither implies the other. Signing in with GitHub gives Nodrik no access to a single repository. Connecting the app does not change how you sign in, and you can connect it whichever way you signed in — most people sign in with Google and connect the app anyway. Disconnecting the app leaves your sign-in exactly as it was.
Optional, and free
Section titled “Optional, and free”Connecting GitHub is optional. Without it, Nodrik still investigates using logs, metrics, error groups and Cloud Run revisions — it simply cannot answer “what changed?” by naming the commit behind a deploy. Skipping this step is a first-class choice, not a failure state; the console says so quietly on Home rather than blocking anything.
Install the app
Section titled “Install the app”From the console, choose Connect GitHub. You will land on GitHub’s own app-installation screen, where you choose which repositories to install Nodrik on — GitHub calls this per-repository consent, and it is the actual authorisation boundary: Nodrik only ever reads a repository you explicitly selected at install time.
GitHub’s own installation screen shows a generic warning about the app being able to “act on your behalf” even for a read-only app — that wording is GitHub’s boilerplate and not something Nodrik can edit or narrow. What Nodrik’s GitHub App actually requests is two read-only permissions: Contents and Metadata, both read-only. No write permission is requested, and none is used.
What is read
Section titled “What is read”- Commit metadata — author, message, timestamp, the commits around a deploy.
- File diffs for one commit — the “what changed” evidence a deploy-shaped incident needs.
- The contents of one file at a given ref, when chasing a stack-trace location.
The caps
Section titled “The caps”Every piece of content read from GitHub is capped before it reaches Nodrik’s reasoning: file diffs and file reads are hard-capped in size (4,000 characters, with a per-file patch limit on top), and the repository named in any call is validated against the installation’s own repository list — the list you chose at install time. Content read from GitHub is treated as untrusted input in the same way log lines are, and the same redaction pass applies before anything is persisted.
What is not read
Section titled “What is not read”Nodrik never installs on an organisation-wide “all repositories” basis by default and never requests write access. Issues, pull request discussion, GitHub Actions runs and package contents are not read — only commit metadata, diffs and file contents on the repositories you selected.
Disconnecting
Section titled “Disconnecting”Disconnecting from the console uninstalls Nodrik’s GitHub App first, then clears the stored installation record — revoking access at the source, rather than only deleting our record of it, so nothing is left that could still read your repositories after you have disconnected.
Beyond logs, metrics and code
Section titled “Beyond logs, metrics and code”GitHub is one of two connectors a customer brings. The other is your own read-only tools — an MCP server or a single endpoint you host — which is how Nodrik checks something that lives outside Google Cloud and GitHub entirely. See Connect your own tools.