How to Mirror Two Github Repositories Controlled by You

Mirroring a GitHub repository can be a helpful trick for:

💾 Backups and redundancy
🧠 Control without maintenance
🎉 Getting around the need for pro plans with some providers (e.g. Vercel)

Github Action

Several solutions exist but they almost always assume that you want to mirror a GitHub repository that you do not control. As such, they often involve running cron jobs to check the source repo for updates.

This is not necessary if you’re able to create a GitHub action within the source repository.

Here are the steps you need to perform to mirror two repositories that you control:

In this example, I assume you want to mirror an organization repository (source) to a private repository in your account (target).

1. Create a Personal Access Token (PAT)

• Go to your GitHub account settings
• Navigate to Developer settings > Personal access tokens
• Create a fine-grained token
• Give read and write permission for repository content
• Give access to the target repository
• Copy the generated token

2. Add the Token as a Secret in Your Organization Repository

• Go to your organization repository settings
• Click on “Secrets and variables” > “Actions”
• Click “New repository secret”
• Name: PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN
• Value: Paste the token you copied
• “Add secret”

3. Allow GitHub Actions in the Target Repository

• Go to the target repository
• Go to “settings” > “Actions” > “General”
• Scroll to “Workflow permissions”
• Select “Read and write permissions”

In the source repo add the following GitHub action file in .github/workflows/mirror.yaml:

Replace yourusername/private-repo.git with your actual private repository path

name: Mirror Repository
 
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  workflow_dispatch: # Allows manual triggering of the workflow
 
jobs:
  mirror:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      contents: write
    steps:
      - name: Checkout repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0 # Fetch all history for all branches and tags
          token: ${{ secrets.PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN }}
 
      - name: Push to private mirror
        run: |
          git remote add private https://github.com/yourusername/private-repo.git
          git push private --force --all
          git push private --force --tags
 

Lastly, change to the source repository and watch it being applied to the target as well.

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