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Last Reviewed: 2026-03-02

Support & Considerations

Additional notes about the GitHub Application, including assumptions, limitations, and support information.

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This page outlines important assumptions, current limitations, and support information for the GitHub Application. Review these considerations before implementing the GitHub Application for your projects.

Assumptions of GitHub Application

Multidev is available to customers with Gold or higher plans

This GitHub Application is designed to work with Multidev environments. Multidev is available to customers on Gold or higher plans. If you are on a lower plan, you can still use the GitHub Application, but you will not be able to use the Multidev features.

Build processes happen on Pantheon

Our separate GitHub Action is designed for more customized workflows that might involve building code elsewhere and deploying to Pantheon. The GitHub Application is designed for teams that want to use Pantheon as their build server.

Currently, Pantheon executes a composer install command through our Integrated Composer feature. If you need compilation of front-end assets in your WordPress or Drupal theme through something like npm run build you should use our GitHub Action now and follow this item on our roadmap for eventual inclusion of such functionality within a Pantheon-prodived build step.

Security and Permissions

The main purpose of the Pantheon GitHub Application is to create a mapping between a repository on GitHub and a website on Pantheon. Configuring the Application requires granting permission to Pantheon to read one or more GitHub repositories. This permission granting is tracked at the Pantheon Workspace level.

People who are members of a Pantheon Workspace and have the Developer role or higher can see all sites in the Workspace. This means they can see sites on Pantheon even if their corresponding Github account doesn't have permission to view the site's GitHub repository.

Permission to create repositories in a GitHub Organization extends to members of a Pantheon workspace

When configuring Pantheon's GitHub Application you will have the choice between granting access to individually selected repositories or "all" repositories within your GitHub organization.

Selecting "all repositories" can be more convenient because it allows for faster creation of new repositories and sites. However, by granting Pantheon the "all repositories" permission you also grant that permission to every member of the Pantheon Workspace who has a Developer role or higher. Depending on the size and nature of your company, you may not want your Pantheon Workspace members to have this permission, especially they are not members of your GitHub organization.

Limitations prior to General Availability

The GitHub Application is currently in private Beta.

We will address these limitations before the application is made generally available.

Limited to new projects created by the Terminus

Activating the GitHub Application presently runs through a Terminus command that creates a new site on Pantheon and a new GitHub repository. The GitHub Application does not yet support retrofitting existing GitHub repositories or Pantheon sites. Follow this issue in the queue to find out when this limitation is removed.

No On Server Development (SFTP Mode)

New sites made with the GitHub Application do not support "SFTP Mode" which allows version controlled files to be altered via SFTP or simply by the CMS changing files, as is common with operations like drush config-export. We know this limitation will stop some teams from using this application and we are seeking feedback on how important it is to support this style of working when using 3rd party repositories.

Support

Before this functionality is made generally available, please direct questions and feedback to the issue queue on the related Terminus plugin rather than general support channels.

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