"Could not authenticate against github.com"

[Jean85]

Description

I'm getting intermittent Could not authenticate against github.com errors in my CI, and I can't pinpoint the problem.

Steps to reproduce

See https://github.com/facile-it/paraunit/actions/runs/4105982330/jobs/7083607877
From this PR: facile-it/paraunit#183

Expected behavior

No issues

Screenshots or output

https://github.com/facile-it/paraunit/actions/runs/4105982330/jobs/7083607877#step:5:95

Environment details

It seems to happen for Tests CI jobs of that project, which are defined like this: https://github.com/facile-it/paraunit/blob/1c5414f0d9b4c67bafe0e05f40dcf9cf83ec20d1/.github/workflows/tests.yaml#L10

Additional context

The linked PR is very removed from the main branch (new major in the works). But the CI definition is very close, I just dropped older PHP versions:

I just rerun on the main branch and it works: https://github.com/facile-it/paraunit/actions/runs/4106204844 (failure on Windows is unrelated)

Is it possible that the failure is due to the usage of some additional repositories? I need them to pull some PRs as a dependency patch: https://github.com/facile-it/paraunit/blob/c6a6dc03c48b682ef7060ca218538e2c689edf44/composer.json#L58-L67

[ramsey]

I've run into this issue when running builds for projects that require private packages, but I've never seen it when using only public packages.

Here's how I solved it for the private packages, and maybe this will help in your case?

Add the following environment variable to your GitHub Actions workflow file. This can be outside the jobs, in which case it will apply to all jobs, or you can set the env var at any step in your jobs to limit it.

env:
   COMPOSER_AUTH: '{"github-oauth": {"github.com": "${{ secrets.PRIVATE_REPO_ACCESS }}"}}'

I called the secret PRIVATE_REPO_ACCESS, but you can name it whatever you want. It's a GitHub personal access token that has permission to read repos.

[Jean85]

You're right, that fixes it, thank you!

I'll file a PR to improve the README in this regard.