Many users with private repos in orgs are hitting this issue. Treating as a bug because there is no visible indication in the UI for what is happening (console errors are hidden) and no links to instructions for how to fix.

Suggested improvements in Gitpod:

1. (If possible), when installing the app on the repository during /new, it should also enable 3rd party access.
2. The 2 start workspace error messages should be improved and point to (or include) instructions for how to fix.
3. Project Branches UI should not hide errors in console error logs.
4. Project Configuration authorization should detect this error state instead of spinning.

Correct 3rd party access

only the Gitpod app required below

Missing 3rd party access

This affects forks also.
#7482

Need visual design on showing errors for Project Branches and Project Config (currenty only in console)
cc: @gtsiolis

Another example from a support user (internal)

@jldec this issue is quite common, saw a good number of users experience this and were left clueless. Here's a recent one: on Discord

This issue affects all users trying to use Gitpod on private org repos.

Minimal suggested fix
The 2 start workspace error messages should be fixed to add the wording below, and link to this issue.

Gitpod cannot access this private repository because it belongs to a GitHub organization which has not granted access to Gitpod OAuth. Pleae see the steps in this issue to fix this.

Scheduled - cc: @geropl

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

This came up again recently (support link - internal)

@jldec Could we solve this problem by finding an alternative to GitHub Apps? E.g., if we nudge people to use Personal Tokens with the relevant scopes, and use that to write PR status updates/comments and install webhooks? 🤔

GitHub orgs now restrict 3rd party application access by default.

I'm pretty sure this is a day one situation with workspace start. The new thing about this was introduced with Projects in Gitpod. We leave a perception that the repository access is granted because it's possible to add the GH App "Gitpod" to the project using the New Project wizard. Unfortunately, the GH App and the GH OAuth App have a distinct accessibility models. The GH Org maintainer needs to approve the GH OAuth App explicitly by following a request.

That's for the problem. Now adding options for a solution:

1. Investigate if it's possible to detect if the GH OAuth App is approved on the org a repo/project belongs to. If this is possible, we'd could nudge the project creator to request approval during the process.
2. Using PAT instead of OAuth tokens selectively per organization/repository.

OK so is this solved or does gitpod not work with github organizations?

For whoever stumbles upon here, this link does work and you just need to scroll down to the organisation you are an admin off and click grant. That solved it for me.

Just to confirm that is still happening and definitely is annoying. Our team is looking to improve our workflow and we are considering Gitpod but when it fails on zero-day without extra steps required it is not a great experience for new customers.
In order to discover this solution I had to first create a discord account (which I never wanted to do for personal reason) then post in the #questions channel and finally look at a suggested thread than then led me here. Now I will have to go to our Github administration setup and manually change that access in order to explore Gitpod for our development team.

Quite a few acrobatics in my opinion when someone want to try your product.

Thanks

Pascal Charbonneau
IT Manager
Leco Industries Inc