Enterprise Cloud Collaborate With Public User

[EAWright]

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Hi there,

I am new to GitHub Enterprise and I am trying to set up access to one of my repositories to a public user.

Is this even possible?

The information I have found uses the language of an external collaborator and in my case I want that to be someone (for this particular component) to be someone outside my organization.

I have tried to follow the steps that both the Internet and GitHub docs has provided but it does not seem to work or allow me to add someone outside of my org.

I have configured OIDC to my EntraID, but again, the person I want to have access is outside my org and I don't want to have to add them to my org.

In the words of Leeloo "please halp"

[cipher20000]

Yes — you can collaborate with someone outside your organization on GitHub Enterprise Cloud, but there are a few conditions depending on how your org permissions are configured.

Here’s how to make it work 👇

Option 1: Add them as an external collaborator (recommended)

Go to the specific private repository → Settings → Collaborators and teams

Click “Add people” → enter their GitHub username or email

Choose Read / Write / Admin access level as needed
✅ This allows access without adding them to your organization.
⚠️ Note: this works only if your organization owner has “Allow outside collaborators” enabled in org settings.

Option 2: Make the repository public (simplest)

If it’s not sensitive, make the repo public → anyone (including the user) can collaborate via forks and pull requests.

Perfect for open collaboration or when external access restrictions apply.

Option 3: Organization policy blocks external collaborators

Some enterprise orgs disable this feature for compliance reasons.

In that case, only an organization owner or admin can toggle this under:
Organization Settings → Member privileges → Outside collaborators.

Ask your admin to temporarily enable it for your repo.

TL;DR:
✅ It’s possible via external collaborators on private repos.
🚫 Not possible if your enterprise admin has disabled that feature.
🔑 Admin or owner needs to allow it under org settings.

If you’re still blocked, share the exact error or restriction message, and the enterprise admin can check whether external collaboration is turned off globally.