Managing GitHub Apps and Personal Access Tokens (PATs) at scale is harder than it should be. Security teams face a constant challenge: understanding which apps are installed, what permissions they have, and which tokens are actively being used.
We've seen this firsthand. Many organizations resort to maintaining Excel spreadsheets to track their GitHub integrations. They manually document which apps have access, what permissions were granted, and when tokens were created. It's time-consuming, error-prone, and quickly becomes outdated.
Today, we're announcing Apps & PATs, a new feature that brings all this information into a single, centralized dashboard.
The Problem: Visibility Gaps Create Security Risk
GitHub Apps and Personal Access Tokens are essential for automating workflows and integrating third-party tools. But they also represent potential security risk, especially when:
- Apps accumulate broad permissions over time without regular review
- Long-lived tokens remain active long after they're needed
- Multiple GitHub organizations in an enterprise lack unified oversight
Without proper tracking, organizations face blind spots that attackers can exploit. A compromised token or over-permissioned app can provide unauthorized access to repositories, secrets, and sensitive code.
The Solution: Centralized, Real-Time Dashboard
Apps & PATs provides security and platform teams with comprehensive visibility into:
GitHub Apps
- All applications installed across your organization
- Granular permissions (color-coded by risk level: red for admin, yellow for write, blue for read)
- Installation scope (all repositories or selected ones)
- Subscribable events and installation dates
- Current status at a glance
Fine-Grained Personal Access Tokens
- Token owner and unique identifier
- Specific permissions granted
- Repository access scope
- Creation, expiration, and last-used timestamps
- Active status monitoring
Classic Personal Access Tokens
- Token owner and credential identifier
- Authorized scopes
- Authorization timestamp
- Quick identification via final 8 characters
Multi-Organization Visibility: A Game Changer for Enterprises
For customers managing multiple GitHub organizations within their enterprise, Apps & PATs goes further. Instead of checking each organization separately, the dashboard aggregates data across all your GitHub orgs in a single view.
This enterprise-wide visibility means you can:
- Spot patterns across organizations (e.g., the same risky app installed everywhere)
- Enforce consistent access policies
- Identify outliers and anomalies quickly
- Reduce context-switching and manual aggregation
What Makes This Different
No More Manual Tracking: Replace static spreadsheets with live data that updates automatically.
Security-First Design: StepSecurity never accesses secret values or PAT contents. We only collect non-sensitive metadata needed for visibility and governance.
Risk at a Glance: Color-coded permissions let you quickly assess risk without diving into details.
Actionable Insights: Identify apps with broad permissions, tokens that haven't been used in months, and credentials that should be rotated.
Real-World Impact
Security teams using Apps & PATs can now:
1. Audit integrations continuously instead of quarterly manual reviews
2. Respond faster to incidents by quickly identifying which apps and tokens have access to affected repositories
3. Enforce least-privilege access by spotting over-permissioned apps and tokens
4. Reduce supply chain risk by monitoring third-party integrations across the organization
5. Save hours of manual work previously spent maintaining spreadsheets
Getting Started
Apps & PATs is available now for Enterprise tier customers.
Ready to gain visibility into your GitHub Apps and PATs? Check out our documentation to get started.
You can also check out this interactive demo to see how it works:
For organizations serious about securing their software supply chain, visibility is the foundation. Apps & PATs ensures you have the complete picture of who and what has access to your code, across every GitHub organization you manage.
As with the rest of the StepSecurity platform, Apps & PATs data is fully accessible via our API, making it easy to integrate into your existing security workflows and reporting pipelines.
.png)
