In a nutshell
Beyond the day-to-day flow, GitHub gives you more tools to run and scale your work.
Let's take a quick tour of what else is at your disposal: Packages, the container registry, and Apps.
Packages & Container Registry
A package registry is where you store and share what you build: libraries and Docker images. GitHub hosts them next to your code, public or private, with the same permissions.
| Type | Registry | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 📦 Libraries | GitHub Packages (npm, Maven, NuGet…) | Share an internal SDK across repos |
| 🐳 Docker images | Container registry ghcr.io | docker pull ghcr.io/org/app:1.2 |
| 🔒 Access | Both | Inherit repo/org permissions |
CI publishes with the built-in GITHUB_TOKEN, so no extra secrets to manage.
📘 Introduction to GitHub Packages ↗
Integrations (GitHub Apps)
GitHub Apps extend functionality with least-privilege, the official way to integrate. Safer than personal PATs and built for orgs.
- 🤖 Grant fine-grained per-repo permissions
- 🔑 Run on short-lived tokens (safer than PATs)
- 🏢 Install org-wide and share with everyone
- 🧩 Many ready-made apps on the Marketplace (e.g. Slack, Jira, Sentry, SonarCloud)
🎯 Lean on Apps, not PATs, for automation and external integrations.