Feature request: allow GitHub Apps (Bot) to be added as collaborators on private Projects v2

[menus12]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Product Feedback

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Projects

Body

Summary

GitHub Apps with Organization projects: Read & write permission cannot access items in private Projects v2, even when the app has Issues: Read + Pull requests: Read on all repositories, and is installed org-wide. The app can see the project exists and read its metadata (title, ID), but items always returns totalCount: 0.

The root cause is that ProjectV2Actor — the union type used for project collaborators — only includes User and Team. GitHub App bot users (Bot type) cannot be added as project collaborators through any path (UI or API).

Request

Expand ProjectV2Actor to include Bot, so that GitHub Apps can be added as collaborators on private Projects v2. This would allow organizations to use GitHub Apps as their automation identity for project board management, instead of requiring user-owned Classic PATs.

Evidence

Setup

• GitHub App with permissions: Organization projects: Read & write, Issues: Read, Pull requests: Read, Metadata: Read
• Installed on org with All repositories scope (53 repos)
• Private org Project (Projects v2)
• Token generated via actions/create-github-app-token@v1

What works

Check	Result
Token generation	OK
Read individual issues directly (/repos/{owner}/{repo}/issues/{n})	Returns full details
List all org projects via GraphQL	Returns all projects with titles
Read project metadata (title, ID, public/closed)	OK
Installation repository list (/installation/repositories)	Returns all 53 repos

What fails

query {
  organization(login: "myorg") {
    projectV2(number: 15) {
      title          # ← works, returns "Governance"
      items(first: 5) {
        totalCount   # ← always 0 (should be 12+)
        nodes { id }
      }
    }
  }
}

Same result via node(id: "PVT_...") path. A user PAT with project scope returns all 12 items for the same query.

Attempted fix: add bot as project collaborator

Via GraphQL mutation:

mutation {
  updateProjectV2Collaborators(input: {
    projectId: "PVT_kwDO..."
    collaborators: [{ userId: "BOT_kgDO...", role: WRITER }]
  }) { ... }
}

Returns: "No object found for userId: \"BOT_kgDO...\"" — the mutation does not accept Bot-type nodes.

Attempting to spread ... on Bot inside ProjectV2Actor returns: "Fragment on Bot can't be spread inside ProjectV2Actor" — confirming Bot is not in the union.

Via UI: The project's "Manage access → Invite collaborators" search does not surface GitHub App bot users.

Alternatives exhausted

Mechanism	Can it access private Project v2 items?	Why not
GitHub App (installation token)	No	ProjectV2Actor excludes Bot — can't be a project collaborator
Fine-grained PAT (org-scoped)	Unreliable	Projects v2 mutations not reliably supported
GITHUB_TOKEN	No	No org-level project access
GitHub Actions OIDC	N/A	For cloud auth, not GitHub API
Classic PAT	Yes — only option	But requires a user account — defeats the purpose of GitHub Apps

Business impact

Organizations that want to automate project board management (syncing fields from YAML, auto-adding issues to boards, setting default priorities) are forced to use user-owned Classic PATs. This creates:

1. Identity coupling — token tied to a person; breaks when they leave
2. Impersonation — all workflow actions appear as the token owner in audit logs
3. No org-level identity — GitHub Apps were designed to solve this exact problem, but can't be used for Projects v2

The only workaround is creating a dedicated machine user account (consuming a GitHub seat, requiring MFA management, creating fake "person" identities) — which is the pattern GitHub Apps were built to replace.

Proposed solution

Add Bot to the ProjectV2Actor union type. This would allow:

1. GitHub App bot users to appear in the project collaborator search
2. updateProjectV2Collaborators mutation to accept Bot node IDs
3. Private project items to be visible to GitHub Apps that are project collaborators

This change would make GitHub Apps a viable automation identity for Projects v2, consistent with their role for Issues, Pull Requests, and other org-level resources.

Related discussions

• GitHub app: permission to access `projectsV2` linked to repositories to which the user gave access permission? #64849 — GitHub app: permission to access projectsV2 linked to repositories
• Can't view or copy public ProjectV2 from GitHub App #159005 — Can't view or copy public ProjectV2 from GitHub App
• GraphQL access to Projects for Github App #148529 — GraphQL access to Projects for Github App
• How to authenticate with a Github App to create V2 projects, through the new graphql API? #46681 — How to authenticate with a Github App to create V2 projects

Guidelines

• I have read the above statement and can confirm my post is relevant to the GitHub feature areas Issues and/or Projects.

[github-actions[bot]]

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