How can I check write access to a remote Git repository ("can I push?")

Question

I am building a (somewhat limited) Git client. To set up a repository, you enter the URL to the remote repo. I want to check whether the user has read+write access to that repository. If not, I present an authentication dialog.

I check 'read' access with git ls-remote <url>.

Is there an analogous way to check 'write' access, without cloning the repo first? (I know I could git clone <url> and then git push --dry-run)

Answer 1

If the git repo is in github, open any file in the repo, then click 'edit', github will show something like this:

You’re editing a file in a project you don’t have write access to. We’ve created a fork of this project for you to commit your proposed changes to. Submitting a change to this file will write it to a new branch in your fork, so you can send a pull request.enter code here

Answer 2

With the latest GitHub API you can check the permissions on a particular repo for a USERNAME (yours or another user) with the following command (you'll need to authenticate using your personal access token) e.g.:

curl -u your_username:your_access_token \  -H "Accept: application/vnd.github.v3+json" \  https://api.github.com/repos/octocat/hello-world/collaborators/USERNAME/permission 

The response will show what permissions the USERNAME has for that repo. Otherwise it will report:

"message": "Not Found"

Note that you should have push access to the repo in question or it will fail with

{   "message": "Must have push access to view collaborator permission.",   "documentation_url": "https://docs.github.com/rest/reference/repos#get-repository-permissions-for-a-user" }