An Overview of Unito's GitHub Integration

Need to include GitHub in your workflow? Here's a list of the fields you can sync, customization options, and more.

What does this article cover?

• Which GitHub fields can Unito sync?
• Customization options for GitHub users
• Install Unito for GitHub
• Limitations and other considerations
• Required permissions for connecting GitHub and Unito
• OAuth scopes

Unito's 2-way GitHub integration allows users to sync GitHub issues from organizations to containers in other tools. Containers can be other GitHub organizations, projects, spreadsheets, calendars, etc. Anything that contains an item that Unito can sync (such as a GitHub issue).

Here's how it works:

Supported GitHub issue fields in Unito

Unito can sync GitHub issues from repos based on the organizations you've authorized to connect to Unito. Here are the fields you can sync with GitHub and which ones you can use in rules.

What counts as an item in sync?

For GitHub, Unito counts every synced issue as an item in sync.

How to connect GitHub to Unito

Only GitHub admins and organization owners can complete these steps. You can find more detailed instructions on adding GitHub to Unito here.

1. First, Sign up for Unito (if you haven't already) or login to Unito. Then, create a flow.
2. After selecting GitHub as a connected tool, you’ll  be prompted to pick an organization or your personal GitHub account. Chooes the organization you plan on syncing.
3. On the next screen, you can choose to sync issues from specific repos within that organization, or issues from all repos. Choose whichever option you prefer.

If you can’t complete this process for any reason, don’t hesitate to reach out to our live support team.

Key Features and Customization Options:

Our GitHub integration supports a number of customization settings.

Two-Way Sync:

Changes made in GitHub are automatically reflected in your other tools, and vice-versa.

Pull request syncing

Keep pull requests in sync with equivalent work items in other tools.

• Note: Unito will never sync or modify code within pull requests.

You can't create new pull requests from another tool, but you can keep them in sync with an equivalent work item in another tool.

Binary attachments

Unito supports binary copy attachments to and from GitHub Cloud or Server on a per-customer basis. We support all file types outlined here. Want to activate this for your workspace? Reach out us.

Open-source repositories

You can sync open-source repositories with your other tool of choice.  Assignees will only sync if their email address is present in the other connected tool.

GitHub Server support

If you're using GitHub Server, you can still use Unito's integration with a few additional configurations. Note that GitHub Server is a premium connector. You can reach out to us to activate it for your workspace.

Prefix task title with issue number

When syncing GitHub to other work management tools, you can have the GitHub issue added as a prefix to the task's title in your other tools.

Limitations and other considerations for Unito's GitHub integration

We’re constantly looking to better support GitHub’s growing list of features, fields, and use-cases. Here are a few limitations you should be aware of:

• Subtasks and checklists can't be synced by default since GitHub only supports parent tasks. . Here's a workaround using Asana as an example.

• Comments and description don't currently sync to text-based fields in tools such as Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel.

• We don't support GitHub projects. Issues connected to both a repo and a project will continue to sync, but you can't select a GitHub project as a block of work.

• GitHub labels can't be mapped with all other fields. It'll only work with similar fields, like tags in Asana or labels in Trello.

• Unito requires workspace members to have certain read & write permissions  in GitHub. 

• In order for on-premise GitHub accounts to connect to Unito, it needs to be accessible via the internet. If that isn't the case, here's a guide to local or on-premise installations.

Which permissions are necessary to connect GitHub and Unito?

Only GitHub organization owners can connect to Unito. Members won't be able to connect.

If your organization has enabled third-party application restrictions, you'll need to follow this step-by-step guide for approving third-party apps in GitHub.

In addition, we need the repository permission that includes “repository webhooks for public and private repositories” to create webhooks. We do not require the admin:repo_hook permission. You can get more information about these permissions here.

Most importantly, Unito will never ask for, or require access to, any code you have stored on GitHub.

Note: We can't sync a repository if it was forked from another repository.

OAuth Scopes

Repository Permissions