Abilities of roles in an enterprise

About roles in an enterprise

GitHub offers a range of predefined and custom roles for access to enterprise settings and resources.

Role	Description
Enterprise owner	Can manage all enterprise settings, members, and policies.
Billing manager	Can manage enterprise billing settings.
App manager	Can manage GitHub App registrations that are owned by the enterprise.
Security manager	Can view security results and manage security settings for the enterprise (public preview).
User	A regular enterprise member with no administrative access. Includes organization members and unaffiliated users.
Guest collaborator	Can be granted access to repositories or organizations, but has limited access by default (Enterprise Managed Users only).
Custom roles	Define your own set of permissions for access to enterprise settings.

People with collaborator access to repositories are listed in your enterprise's "People" tab, but are not enterprise members and do not have access to the enterprise. See Roles in an organization.

Enterprise owners

Enterprise owners have complete control over the enterprise and can take every action, including:

• Managing administrators
• Adding and removing organizations
• Removing enterprise members from all organizations
• Managing enterprise settings
• Enforcing policy across organizations
• Managing billing settings
• Managing security settings

Enterprise owners do not have access to organization settings or content by default, but they can gain access by joining any organization. See Managing your role in an organization owned by your enterprise.

Billing managers

Billing managers only have access to your enterprise's billing settings. They can view and manage:

• User licenses
• Usage-based billing
• Other billing settings

Billing managers do not have access to organization settings or content by default except for internal repositories within an enterprise in which they are a member.

App managers

GitHub App managers:

• Can view, create, edit, and delete GitHub App registrations that are owned by the enterprise. For the specific app settings that GitHub App managers can control, see Modifying a GitHub App registration.
• Cannot install and uninstall GitHub Apps on an enterprise or organization.

App managers can also be assigned to individual apps. See Adding and removing GitHub App managers in your enterprise.

Security managers

Security managers have the permissions required to effectively manage use of security features and alerts for the enterprise. They can view, manage, and assign:

• Security configurations at the enterprise and organization level
• Use of GitHub Secret Protection and GitHub Code Security at the enterprise and organization level
• Security alerts and dashboards for all repositories in organizations in the enterprise
• Security campaigns for organizations
• Repository settings for security features

In addition, they have read access for code in all repositories and write access for all security alerts in the enterprise.

Users

Users have no administrative access to the enterprise by default. They cannot access or configure enterprise settings, unless you assign them a custom role that grants this access.

Organization members

If a user is a member or owner of any organization, they are listed as an organization member on your enterprise's "People" page. In addition to their access to organizations where they are members, these users can access all repositories with "internal" visibility in any organization in the enterprise. See About repositories.

Unaffiliated users

If a user is not a member of any organization, they are listed as an unaffiliated user. These users:

• Do not consume a GitHub Enterprise license.
• Cannot access private or internal repositories.
• Can be added as members of enterprise teams.
• Can receive a Copilot license directly from your enterprise.

Guest collaborators

You can use the guest collaborator role to grant limited access to vendors and contractors. Guest collaborators:

• Are provisioned by your IdP, like all managed user accounts.
• Can be added as organization members or as collaborators in repositories.
• Cannot access internal repositories in the enterprise, except in organizations where they're added as a member.

The difference between a guest collaborator and a regular user is that when a regular user is added to one organization, they can automatically access all internal repositories in the enterprise.

You may need to update your IdP application to use guest collaborators. See Enabling guest collaborators.

Custom roles

With custom roles, you can define your own sets of permissions. This allows you to delegate administrative duties securely or grant extra privileges to help non-administrators be productive.

To create a custom enterprise role, see Creating custom roles in an enterprise.

Next steps

When you have decided which roles your users require, assign the roles to them. See Assigning roles to people in an enterprise.