Connect GitHub

Render connects with GitHub to deploy your apps and websites automatically on every push to your project. You can connect all your public and private projects on github.com to Render and use our GitHub integration to create web services, static sites, APIs, background workers and more.

You can also use Render to automatically create Pull Request Preview URLs for your web apps and static sites.

Setup

When you create your first service on Render you will have the option to connect GitHub on a screen that looks like this:

Clicking on Connect GitHub will redirect you to github.com where you can authorize Render to access your repositories. You will then be redirected back to Render where you will see a list of your GitHub repos. You can then proceed by clicking on the repo you’d like to use for your service.

Pull Request Previews

Render can automatically build and deploy GitHub pull requests if pull request previews are enabled for your service. Once enabled, you will see a comment from Render when your pull request is created. It should look similar to this:

Render creates a unique URL for every pull request and builds and deploys the latest changes as they’re pushed to the PR. PR servers are automatically deleted when the corresponding PR is merged or closed.

Git Submodules

Render will read a .gitmodules file at the root of your repo and automatically clone all Git submodules defined in it.

Private submodules are cloned if you’ve granted Render’s GitHub app permission to access the submodule’s repository.

Log in with GitHub

In addition to using GitHub projects to deploy apps, you can also use your github.com account to sign up for Render and for subsequent logins. If you already have an account on Render that matches your primary GitHub email, you will be logged into the existing account automatically.

Troubleshooting

Scenarios where manual or automatic deploys are not working as expected are commonly caused by the Render GitHub app being misconfigured. For example, the GitHub app may be configured for the wrong set of repositories, or a repository that was previously public is made private.

Fixing GitHub App Permissions

Visit https://github.com/apps/render/installations/new to manage the permissions you’ve given the Render app. Go ahead and install it if you haven’t already. If it’s already installed, click Configure.

From here, you can check the Repository access section to make sure your repository is included.

Team Specific Issues

When the creator of a Render service no longer has access to its GitHub repository, it can create issues with both manual and automatic deploys. You can update the Git credentials used for deploying your service from the services Settings page in the Dashboard. When making this change, ensure that you have access to the service’s Git repository.