API authorization trouble on Qualtrics

[sarfeng02]

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Hi all,

I hope you are well! My group and I are attempting to create a psychology experiment on Qualtrics, where we want to use a feature to pull a publically hosted file on our Github and show different rows of this file to different participants. When we try to use GET to access the Github API, we see the following:

We used the authorization header suggested by the REST API guideline page on Github, but when we click 'Test' the box with our file highlights in red and nothing happens (it is supposed to show the first few lines of the file). API access is enabled on our Qualtrics. We contacted Qualtrics support, and they told us the issue was somehow related to authentication problems or permissions.

Does anyone have any guidance on how to best reach the Github REST API?

Thank you!

[iamwujiabao]

First, a critical security warning: Your screenshot shows your full Personal Access Token (PAT). Since this is now public, you must revoke and delete this token immediately in your GitHub settings to protect your account.

Regarding the "red box" error in Qualtrics, here are the two ways to fix the connection:

Option 1: The Simple Approach (Recommended)

If your repository is public, you do not need an API token or the REST API.

• URL: Use the Raw URL you already have.
• Action: Delete the Authorization header entirely.
• Why: Public raw files don't require authentication. Adding a token to a raw URL often causes the request to fail because the server doesn't expect it.

Option 2: The API Approach (For Private Files)

If your repository is private, you must use the official API endpoint and include a mandatory User-Agent header, which GitHub requires for all requests.

• URL: https://api.github.com/repos/sarfeng02/responses_study/contents/message
• Headers: You must include all three of these:
  1. Authorization: Bearer YOUR_NEW_TOKEN
  2. Accept: application/vnd.github.raw (This ensures you get the file text rather than JSON data).
  3. User-Agent: QualtricsApp (GitHub will reject any request that lacks this header).

Recommendation: Most psychology researchers use Option 1 with a public repository. It is much easier to set up in Qualtrics and avoids the security risks of managing tokens. Just remember to generate a fresh token if you decide to go with Option 2!