How to accept a Github repository invitation through API?

Question

I was looking at the Github API and it allows you to fetch all repository invites through an API endpoint (see https://developer.github.com/v3/repos/invitations/#list-invitations-for-a-repository). This works fine like this:

from requests.auth import HTTPBasicAuth
import requests
login = 'xxx'
password = 'yyy'
url = 'https://api.github.com/user/repository_invitations'
repository_invites = requests.get(
            url, auth=HTTPBasicAuth(login, password)).json()
print('response: ' + str(repository_invites))

I can then get out each request its url like this:

for repository_invite in repository_invites:
    print('url: ' + repository_invite.get('url'))

Which gives something back like:

url: https://api.github.com/user/repository_invitations/123456789

Github also mentions that you can accept an invite at https://developer.github.com/v3/repos/invitations/#accept-a-repository-invitation which mentions

PATCH /user/repository_invitations/:invitation_id

What I don't get is how I can tell Github how to accept it though. This endpoint seems to be used for both deleting and accepting an invitation. Github talks about PATCH at https://developer.github.com/v3/#http-verbs which mentions you can use either a POST or send a PATCH request, however not how. So the question is, how do I know what I should send in the PATCH call? I tried this for example:

result = requests.patch(repository_invite.get('url'), json.dumps({'accept': True}))
    print('result: ' + str(result.json()))

Which gives back:

result: {'message': 'Invalid request.\n\n"accept" is not a permitted key.', 'documentation_url': 'https://developer.github.com/v3'}

Answer 1

In order to call the API endpoint you will need to have authentication with your Github user and you need to send a Patch call (which can take data/headers if you would need them). Here's a working sample:

for repository_invite in repository_invites:
    repository_id = repository_invite.get('id')
    accept_invite = requests.patch('https://api.github.com/user/repository_invitations/'+ str(repository_id), 
            data={}, headers={},
            auth=HTTPBasicAuth(github_username, github_password))

Without the authentication the Patch call will give back a 404 response code because it is only accessible behind a login for obvious safety purpose. If you call the endpoint user/repository_invitations/ followed by the ID Github will automatically accept the invitation.