How to install R package from private repo using devtools install_github?

Question

I am trying to install a sample package from my github repo: https://github.com/jpmarindiaz/samplepkg

I can install it when the repo is public using any of the following commands through the R interpreter:

• install_github("jpmarindiaz/rdali")
• install_github("rdali",user="jpmarindiaz")
• install_github("jpmarindiaz/rdali",auth_user="jpmarindiaz")

But when the git repository is private I get an Error:

Installing github repo samplepkg/master from jpmarindiaz
Downloading samplepkg.zip from     
https://github.com/jpmarindiaz/samplepkg/archive/master.zip
Error: client error: (406) Not Acceptable

I haven't figured out how the authentication works when the repo is private, any hints?

Answer 1

Have you tried setting a personal access token (PAT) and passing it along as the value of the auth_token argument of install_github()?

See ?install_github way down at the bottom (Package devtools version 1.5.0.99).

Answer 2

Create an access token in: https://github.com/settings/tokens

Check the branch name and pass it to ref

devtools::install_github("user/repo"
                         ,ref="main"
                         ,auth_token = "tokenstring"
                         )

Answer 3

A more modern solution to this problem is to set your credentials in R using the usethis and credentials packages.

#set config
usethis::use_git_config(user.name = "YourName", user.email = "your@mail.com")

#Go to github page to generate token
usethis::create_github_token() 

#paste your PAT into pop-up that follows...
credentials::set_github_pat()

#now remotes::install_github() will work
remotes::install_github("username/privaterepo")

More help at https://happygitwithr.com/common-remote-setups.html#common-remote-setups