Groups

A group is a named set of organization members. You can use a group in two ways:

• Invite it to a repository. Everyone in the group becomes a collaborator in one step. This copies the current members once. People you add to the group later do not get access.
• Use it in granular permission rules. A rule always applies to the group’s current members. When you add or remove someone, the rule changes for them too.

Groups belong to an organization, so you can use them only with repositories in that organization.

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Who can do what

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Opening the Groups page

1. Click your profile avatar in the top navigation and select Organization settings.
2. In the settings sidebar, select Groups.

If you belong to more than one organization, first pick the organization in the organization selector at the top left of the global bar. The Groups page lists each group with its description and number of members. To see who is in a group, click the group’s name.

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Creating a group

1. Open the Groups page and click Create group.
2. Enter a name. You can also add a description and pick members under Members (optional). Then click Create.

• Each group name must be unique in the organization.
• Creating a group does not add you to it. To include yourself, pick yourself under Members (optional).
• You can only add people who are already members of the organization. To add someone who is not a member yet, invite them to the organization first.

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Adding members

1. Open the Groups page and click the group’s name.
2. Under Select a member to add…, pick the person. They are added right away.

What changes for the new member:

• Permission rules that target the group now apply to them.
• They do not get access to repositories the group was invited to before. Invite them to those repositories, or invite the group again.

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Removing members

1. Open the Groups page and click the group’s name.
2. Click Member next to the person and select Remove.
3. Click Remove to confirm.

What changes for the removed member:

• Permission rules that target the group no longer apply to them.
• They keep access to repositories the group was invited to. To remove that access, remove them from each repository’s collaborators. See Managing repository collaborators.

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Editing a group

1. Open the Groups page and click the menu icon at the end of the group’s row.
2. Select Edit group.
3. Change the name or description, then click Save.

To change who is in the group, see Adding members and Removing members.

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Deleting a group

1. Open the Groups page and click the menu icon at the end of the group’s row.
2. Select Delete group, then click Delete to confirm.

You cannot undo this. What changes:

• Nobody loses repository access. People the group added stay collaborators.
• Permission rules that target the group stop working. They no longer grant or deny access, but they stay in the rules list until you delete them. If the group has rules, the confirmation dialog lists the repositories that have them.

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Giving a group access to a repository

1. Open the repository’s collaborators dialog. See Managing repository collaborators.
2. Type the group name in the Email, user, or group… field.
3. Choose an access level and click Send invite.

Every current member of the group becomes a collaborator right away. They do not need to accept an invitation.

• If a member already has access to the repository at a lower level, inviting the group at a higher level raises their access to that level. It never lowers anyone’s access.
• If you remove someone from the repository and later invite the group again, they are added back.

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Using a group in permission rules

When you add a granular permission rule, choose the group in the User or Group field. Each rule targets either one user or one group. A rule always applies to the group’s current members. When you add someone to the group, the rule applies to them. When you remove someone, it stops applying to them.

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Limitations

• A group cannot contain other groups.
• Branch protection, reviewers, and notifications work with individual users, not groups.