Heroku and GitHub Enterprise Server: Stronger Security, Seamless Delivery

Today, we are thrilled to announce the General Availability (GA) of the Heroku GitHub Enterprise Server Integration.

For our Enterprise customers, the bridge between code and production must be more than just convenient. It must be resilient, secure, and governed at scale. While our legacy OAuth integration served us well, the modern security landscape demands a shift away from personal credentials toward managed service identities.

Why switch to the GitHub Apps integration?

This new integration is built on GitHub Apps, moving beyond the limitations of personal OAuth tokens to provide a more robust connection for mission-critical pipelines.

• Decoupled authentication: Historically, if the developer who set up a pipeline left the organization, the deployment would break. With this integration, the GitHub App acts as its own identity. Your CI/CD pipelines remain stable regardless of personnel changes.
• Granular security: GitHub Apps offer superior permission control compared to broad OAuth scopes. You can allowlist specific repositories and define exactly what Heroku can see and do.
• Zero service accounts: You no longer need to manage and pay for a separate “bot user” to act as a service account. The GitHub App acts on its own behalf, reducing overhead and security surface area.

Strategic benefits for DevOps teams

By moving to this integration, you unlock the full power of Heroku Flow for your private GitHub Enterprise Server instances:

1. Enhanced CI/CD automation: Seamlessly link your GitHub Enterprise repositories to Heroku Pipelines to orchestrate the flow of code from staging to production. Ensure that your GitHub Actions pass successfully before any code is automatically deployed, maintaining a high bar for production stability.
2. Review apps for every PR: Give your stakeholders and QA teams instant, isolated environments to test feature branches, fully integrated within your GitHub Enterprise Server firewall.
3. Repeatable “golden paths”: When combined with Terraform, you can now programmatically provision Heroku Apps that are automatically linked to your Enterprise repos via a secure, organization-level handshake.
4. Enterprise governance: Admins gain a “single pane of glass” view in the Heroku Enterprise Account settings to see all authorized organizations and manage repo access across the entire fleet of applications.

Getting started

The integration is available today for all Heroku Enterprise customers. Because this is an organization-level change, we recommend a phased rollout:

• Step 1: Enable for testing. Reach out to Heroku Support to enable the feature for a specific test team.
• Step 2: Connect. Navigate to your Enterprise Account Settings tab to link your GitHub Enterprise Server URL.
• Step 3: Reconfigure. Update your existing pipelines to use the new connection.

For a step-by-step walkthrough, including prerequisites and limitation details, visit our official Dev Center documentation.