New private repo option fails with 404

[artur-sannikov]

I can authenticate with

ssh -T git@github.com

I can also download the archive by following the URL in the error message.

Error: Request `curl::curl_fetch_disk()` failed:
HTTP response code said error [github.com]:
The requested URL returned error: 404
If it's a GitHub repo, check the url and commit.
Are these correct? If it's an archived CRAN package, check the name
of the package and the version number.
Failing repo: https://github.com/myorg/private_repo/archive/f18dd1d.tar.gz
Execution halted

My code

library(rix)
rix(
  project_path = ".",
  overwrite = TRUE,
  r_ver = "4.4.1",
  git_pkgs = list(
    package_name = "myPkg", # It's the same as in DESCRIPTION
    repo_url = "git@github.com:myorg/private_repo.git",
    commit = "f18dd1d", # Does not work even with full-length commit
    private = TRUE
  )
)

The rix version is the latest 0.18.2:

R version 4.5.2 (2025-10-31)
Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
Running under: NixOS 26.05 (Yarara)

Matrix products: default
BLAS/LAPACK: /nix/store/9rp469cmiys6a4ncgc6nhwvj8kb9a2q7-blas-3/lib/libblas.so.3;  LAPACK version 3.12.0

locale:
 [1] LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8       LC_NUMERIC=C              
 [3] LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8        LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8    
 [5] LC_MONETARY=en_US.UTF-8    LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8   
 [7] LC_PAPER=en_US.UTF-8       LC_NAME=C                 
 [9] LC_ADDRESS=C               LC_TELEPHONE=C            
[11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C       

time zone: Europe/Tallinn
tzcode source: system (glibc)

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     

other attached packages:
[1] rix_0.18.2

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] compiler_4.5.2   tools_4.5.2      curl_7.0.0       codetools_0.2-20
[5] jsonlite_2.0.0 

[b-rodrigues]

Did you configure a PAT? and made it accessible to the current R session using Sys.setenv() or any other method?

Also, is the url right? myorg/private_repo.git?

[artur-sannikov]

I even hard-coded it directly to the file:

Sys.setenv(
  GITHUB_PAT = "github_pat...."
)

print(Sys.getenv("GITHUB_PAT")) # outputs it in the console

The url is correct. I just redacted it for the example. I can download the archive if I copy the URL from the error.

The PAT has access to the contents of the repository with read/write permissions.

[b-rodrigues]

It's going to be tough to help you, I'm not sure what's wrong, what does usethis::git_sitrep() say?

[b-rodrigues]

So I just tried again with one of my private repos, and it works. This is quite surprising that it doesn't work for you. You can authenticate to Github, so your ssh keys are in order, and actually, a PAT wouldn't even be necessary (this was my first idea, but thinking about it, I don't think it's needed as long as your ssh keys are configured).

Could try running the temporary session using

nix-shell --expr "$(curl -sl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ropensci/rix/main/inst/extdata/default.nix)"

[artur-sannikov]

Thanks @b-rodrigues. I have created an example R package with Claude and made
it private under my account. I thought it's the issue is that my another
package is under an organization. But I'm still getting 404 error even though
the link is correct, and I can download the archive.

I can add you as a collaborator to the repo, so you can try it out. Is it ok?

I think it has something to do with my SSH permissions, or whatever.

[artur-sannikov]

I solved the issue. We do require a GITHUB_PAT token with the correct
permissions. If using gh CLI tool, it's available in the R session according
to usethis::git_sitrep(). I just needed to use
usethis::create_github_token() to create a token with the correct permissions
like user::email, etc. However, in order to make it accessible to rix, it
should be declared either in .Renviron or as an environment variable with
export GITHUB_PAT=.... Even though R sees it even without setting it
explicitly, it's not accessible to rix for some reason.

[b-rodrigues]

if you have time I'd welcome a contribution to the docs detailing this!

[artur-sannikov]

I think the issue was with my work machine. On my desktop it just worked
without setting any PAT.

[artur-sannikov]

I tested it a little bit more, and it's 50/50 on different machines. Not sure what's going on here.
I will re-open the issue and can submit a PR with a small note regarding it in the documentation.