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GitHub repository

One home online for your code or files, with every version saved and reversible. You pick who gets in:

  • Public — anyone with the link reads it, copies it, and builds on it. No account.
  • Private — only the people you invite.

Reach for it when people will build on your work, not just look. Skip it when someone just wants to click and use a finished thing — running a repo defeats most non-coders.

Last verified: 2026-06-07 · Confidence: high on affordances, access model, free-plan limits.

It allows you to

  • Hand over the whole thing. Anyone you allow copies every file at once.
  • Edit in parallel. Several people change it at once — nothing gets overwritten, everything's tracked, anything reverts.
  • Approve every change. Others propose; nothing takes effect until you say yes — the strongest build-on-my-work flow here.
  • Keep one source of truth. You update it once; everyone gets the latest.
  • Set and change who's in — one person, a team, or the whole internet, revocable in a click. Details: Who can get in.

Ideal for

  • A document or toolkit a group refines over months — you see who changed what and undo any bad edit, which a shared folder or chat thread can't.
  • A template others copy to start their own version — dozens of people branch off your work without ever touching your original.
  • An open project strangers can improve — anyone proposes a fix; nothing changes until you approve it. Almost nothing else lets outsiders contribute safely. Like AISI's Inspect eval framework — 500+ outside copies, dozens of pending proposals, one team approving.

Who can get in

  • You pick the audience. Lock it to just you, name the people you invite, open it to an org, or post it to the whole internet — but no "anyone with the link" middle ground (a gist fits that, covered later). [confirmed]
  • Let one person in. One invite, they accept once → Give someone access.
  • Let a crowd in. Past a handful, group them in an org and grant by team instead of inviting one-by-one. [confirmed]
  • Cut someone off. Remove them and access stops right away. (A copy they already downloaded stays with them — true everywhere.) [estimate]
  • Cross company lines. A personal account can usually share with anyone, inside or outside your org; enterprise admins may switch outside sharing off. [unclear] (GitHub's enterprise/EMU docs aren't explicit — checked 2026-06)

Which rungs it can hold. Just you / named people / org-only / the whole internet — every rung except anyone with the link. → Who can see it? [confirmed]

Handing data to the host. A private repo is visible to GitHub. Its Terms say GitHub won't use private-repo contents to improve the Service except what you feed into its AI features — and you can switch that off. Team/Enterprise add a data agreement. → Can you trust the company? [confirmed]

What you do to set it up

  • Ask: tell Claude Code "make a private repo and put this online." Every share after setup: one sentence, ~0 effort.
  • One-time, in order:
    1. Set up Claude Code — the thing that does the rest, ~10 min once.
    2. Create a GitHub account — passkey login, ~10 min once.
    3. Connect the GitHub CLI — so your agent can act for you, ~3 min once.
  • Rather click? Browser path runs ~5 min/share after the ~10 min GitHub account (no CLI needed) → Share a repo by hand. [estimate]

What the other person does

  • Just look (public): click. ~5 sec, no account.
  • Get into a private repo: accept the email invite (~2 min). New to GitHub? Make an account, ~10 min once.
    • Accept within 7 days, at an email you'll verify — or the invite won't land.
  • Run the code: point their own agent at it ("set this up and run it"), or do it by hand. A bare ZIP gets the files, not a running app.
  • Send changes back: open a pull request.
  • Pay: nothing — private repos and unlimited collaborators are free.

Other ways to share

  • Just showing a finished thing they click and use? → Deploy a website or a Claude Artifact. Both open in any browser — ~5 sec, no account, nothing to run — where a repo hands over files most non-coders can't start.
  • Spreading a pattern, not the exact files? → a Reconstruction prompt. One block of text rebuilds a close cousin with no invite, no account, no seat — and crosses org lines a private repo can't.
  • A different host, a clean "make it yours" copy, or a no-host hand-off? → Other ways to share a repo — GitLab's DevOps suite, a template button, or a single offline file, when a plain GitHub repo isn't the fit.
    • Just words people read or mark up? → a Google Doc opens in one tap, no account to view, comments in the margin. Model weights or a dataset? The Hugging Face Hub is the repo built for big ML files.

Sources

Good to know

  • Free covers unlimited private repos + unlimited collaborators, since 2020-04-14. [confirmed] (changelog)
  • 2FA is mandatory for everyone who contributes code on GitHub.com (rolled out from March 2023); GitHub flags SMS as carrying security risks some threat models won't accept — steer people to a passkey. [confirmed]
  • Pricing (Pro/Team/Enterprise): re-check live at github.com/pricing. [unclear]